My friend recently went indoor rock climbing with his girlfriend and called to tell me about it. He, like me, is very into fitness, movement and physical challenges. And, unlike me, he’s been gifted with natural strength, flexibility and balance. So of course, he absolutely loved it. As he extolled the virtues of rock climbing…
Missing My Sunshine Puppy
I still miss My Little Sunshine Puppy Snickers. It’s been a year since the worst few months of our lives together, when she was suffering from dementia but I had not yet recognized the symptoms. When I am checking for something in my journal from those days, it makes my stomach hurt as I read…
Fly Bye
About 10 years ago, when catching a flight home from a business trip, I was randomly assigned TSA Precheck on my boarding pass. I didn’t even notice until I entered the TSA security area and was directed to the Precheck line which had a handful of people in it thus skipping the 100+ people queued…
Hiring A Pro
My Dad taught me to swim when I was 5 years old. I watched him do the breaststroke wearing a mask and picked it up immediately. I was thrilled! After being the little kid who could only splash around in the shallows I became a little underwater frog exploring the bottom of the pool, the…
Stroking The Fire
There’s a hot woman who has been swimming at the pool around the same time I do in the mornings. Unlike me and most of the other regulars, she’s in her 30s or 40s, has a fit, tan, tone body and swims like a trained athlete. So of course, I notice her. Her swimming is…
The Wrong Crowd
I have spent most of my life engaging with friends, family members, neighbors, classmates, coworkers and acquaintances. Some of these were people I would not have chosen to spend time with. However, like most of us, I didn’t always have a choice in the matter. Generally, I got along with most people. If it became…
Stepping Away
On a stepparent subreddit I read a post that asked if widowed stepparents maintained contact with their adult stepchildren after their spouse had died. Many of the responders had been active stepparents who helped raise their non-biological kids when they were younger. When younger, the stepchildren had lived with them full-time or part-time under shared…
Desiring Connection – As Long As It’s Easy
This week, in response to a user request, I setup a meetup section in the Solo Community forum for several major cities (Denver, DC, London, NYC). Within a few hours, I received a dozen more requests from members asking to have one created for their region. We ended up with 19 metro areas across six…
Math Challenge
When I was in school, I absolutely loved math until I reached calculus in the 12th grade. Numbers have always made sense to me. Addition and subtraction in elementary school were a breeze. Then when I was introduced to multiplication, division, fractions and decimals my mind was blown. Algebra intuitively made sense to me. I…
The Facts Don’t Matter
I was listening to Morgan Housel’s podcast last week when he talked about people making decisions based on emotions vs. reason. Although he was speaking about decisions regarding finances, spending, investing and lifestyle inflation, I drew immediate parallels regarding almost every decision people make. He said, “When someone makes a decision based on emotions you…