Life Blog

“I memorized your face just in case you try to murder my friends.”

I paused a moment at this audaciously honest remark. A part of me wanted to howl in laughter – another part wanted to reassure her that I’m a “good guy.” Instead I matched her bold stare and replied, “That’s fair.”

Because it was. I was about to get into a slick Purple Mustang with three tipsy women I had just met 20 minutes…

The story starts out the way all good ones do – in a bar. Union Tavern to be specific.

Ya boy Barry was casually chillin there alone with the goal of eventually talking to someone. From the bar counter I scanned around for someone who looked open to speaking with a stranger.

Nope, too old.

Nope, too tall.

She’s wearing a hoodie, that’s really suspicious.

Welp, guess I’ll just stay here.

My brain…

Houston, we have a Barry pt 2

Where did I leave off? Ah, yes – The car thermostat proudly declared it to be 101 degrees Fahrenheit. The scorching heat paired with unlimited humidity made me feel like was living in a sauna – minus the middle aged naked men of course.

Looks like I’m here.

I triumphantly pulled my Chevy Equinox into a parking spot of the apartment leasing office. I grabbed the deposit along with the paperwork…

Houston, we have a Barry

Two month ago I set course for Houston, Texas. The 3 weeks heading up to my departure saw a hurricane of activity: I filled out 37 pages of employment paperwork/clearances, turned in two course projects, finished an internship, trained the incoming graduate assistant replacing me, partied at Capitol, moved out of my apartment, drove five hours through a thunderstorm to Pittsburgh and stayed four…

I want to be a dating coach.

…. Interesting. That wouldn’t have been my opening line.

Brain, what do you mean? It’s the truth, I want to be a dating coach.

Well yeah that is cool and all but what about the other stuff?

I’m not following you.

Dude really? NASA, Moving to Houston, Salsa dancing, Random girl tickling you in the bar – is any of this ringing a bell?

Haha oooohh you mean my life…

Rip up the intangible contract.

Forgo the unwritten lease.

Abandon the silent script.

Every day I see people doing things not aligned with their best interests so that they can fulfill an Invisible Obligation. What is an Invisible Obligation? Barryiam-Webster defines it as “Unstated rules or obligations we unwillingly invent or conform to.” What’s wild about invisible obligations people is how…

Crazy things I’m up to: 2x Speed

In an effort to keep my hyper active mind at ease I engage in a number of self-imposed challenges. I often refer to them as my “experiments” because I feel like I’m treating myself like a guinea pig. My latest experiment is a reaction to my massive impatience and absurdly low attention span. The driving question was this:

“Is it possible to watch Netflix on 2x speed?”

Barry what the hell? Why…

The other day I learned something crucial about myself: I would rather die than be someone’s Plan B. Specifically to know that my partner essentially “settled” for me.

Even the thought of this coming pass deeply disturbs me. If I’m the romantic equivalent of a silver metal what stops them from chasing after the gold? Even if my partner eventually valued me at gold status how could I reconcile…

Sometimes I have to rummage through the foxhole hole of my mind to find good ideas. Like earthworms they wriggle around in the dirt waiting to be uncovered. Occasionallly bad fertilizer causes mind rot and all the ideas die. So what do you do then?

My secret? Train your brain to think in stories. Even the average can be transmuted into a spectacle with the right story. A simple start begins with…

In the flurry of day to day madness easily allows us to get lost in the mundane tasks of life. Slogging through emails, texts, notifications: it’s like playing a never-ending game of mental air hockey. In those moments of monotony, we can feel reduced to unfeeling biological automatons. Compounded over a long enough timeline the daily drudgery can chip away at vibrancy of the human spirit. To…

Don’t hide the evidence! Get rid of it!

As a passive viewer of a crime thriller it drives me crazy when characters do seemingly irrational things. Audiences of horror movies are acutely aware of this fact, “why do they always split up?” Ironically, our life is the exact same way. To an unbiased spectator we are the unwise teens who intentionally run into a dimly lit cave. Luckily, you have some…

*I orignally wrote this for a Graduate Discussion assignment about Work/Life Balance and got carried away…*

My approach to Work/Life balance is simple: Take a systems perspective. By this I mean people should design a system in which balance in built into your schedule so that it not something that needs to be consciously performed. My primary strategies for maintaining balance fall into the…

For a while I got the sense that something felt wrong. My commitment to embracing self-discipline remained rock solid. Besides the occasional cheat day my health was on point. Fortunate worked hard to keep skewing things positively in my favor – to the point where I started to think Lady Luck had a crush on me! If things are great why is there a thought gently nagging in the background of mind?…

Pro tip of the day: Don’t watch scary movies if you live alone.

Barry, what the heck do you mean? Why would I ever do that to myself?

Okay fair point. I suppose this post is more a reminder for myself than general advice.

I L-O-V-E going to the movie theater. Being able to kick back in a reclining seat in a pitch-black room while facing a gigantic screen gives me a cool wave of catharsis. Sure, Netflix is nice, but it will never truly compare to the…

Ghosting is a strange phenomenon born out of our technology based culture. For some it is an innocuous act of disappearance, for others it is a degrading sign of disrespect. I’ll come clean – I have ghosted two people before. Both times I genuinely believed it was the only viable option. No communication allows for a cleaner split. I slept with a clear coconscious for years until recently. Ironic…

Writer’s block is that terrible creeping feeling you get in the back of your throat. The suffocation starts slow until finally your ideas perish. For months I suffered through this condition. The thought of a keyboard induced a hair tingling extra sensory sense of nausea. It was like being told to voluntarily walk the plank. Why would I ever submit myself to such madness? Here’s the other thing.…