Author: Steve Ainslie

I have been reading “The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction” which is a collection of essays, speeches, introductions and articles written by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman is a prolific author of horror novels, short stories, graphic novels and fantasy books. The book was on the “librarian recommended” shelf at the library. Since I had…

My bedroom has an en suite bathroom, which is something I rarely enjoyed in my previous homes. We had them, but I always let my wife take over master bathroom and used the guest bathroom for me. Now that I live alone, that’s no longer the case. Lately I’ve been getting annoyed by the bathroom…

Two years ago I wrote about limiting contact with a friend who had become intolerably self-centered. Since then, we’ve fallen into a cadence of a weekly catch up call. After a call last week, I realized, with some chagrin, that once again we spent an entire hour on the phone and never spoke once about…

I forgot my wedding anniversary again this year just like I did during many of the 19 years I was “officially” married – despite the fact that my mom gave me a wedding gift of a bronze platter with the date embossed on it to remind me. One reason why this date was unimportant to…

Nothing good happens at 2 in the morning. That’s when I’m out most mornings with Wiggles doing our first walk of the day. We both enjoy it. It’s dark. It’s quiet. We have the entire street and both sidewalks to explore. We see families of deer, dozens of bunnies, bats, and occasional owls. There are…

Back in the old days, before voicemail, answering machines, portable phones and Caller ID, my wife would go crazy when the phone rang. She’d drop whatever she was doing, stop a conversation mid-sentence and dive across the room to answer it. I found that annoying beyond belief. I was insulted that she’d interrupt a conversation…

I have only vague memories of life during my 20s after I moved in with my future wife and her kids. I remember being stressed and busy all the time. I remember working a lot and struggling to pay the bills. I remember our lives being dominated by kids – getting them up for school,…

I was thinking about the women I’ve loved this morning when it occurred to me that only two of them were good matches for me – my first girlfriend and my last girlfriend (who became my wife). In between, I had several girlfriends, many crushes and dated dozens of others. In addition, as a widower,…

It Is fittingly ironic that just a few weeks after I wrote this post about not being able to relate to any grief support books, websites or podcasts, that I listened to the most helpful discussion on grief I have heard since my wife died nearly 5 years ago. The irony is in both the…

Yesterday, I met with a friend in downtown Raleigh for lunch. I hadn’t been downtown (or beyond the borders of my suburban enclave) for months. Driving through the commercial districts and then visiting the city center always have an impact on me. This time, it was the homeless people. At major intersections on the way…