The musings of a madman...

       Not to let you in on more than you need to know about me, but my full-time job has existed under the constant possibility of a random drug test...      I could, at any moment, receive an email and teams message from my manager telling me that I have 30 minutes to report to a draw station and present a sample to be tested for illegal drugs. 18 years and 8 months had successfully transpired without me EVER having received any such a thing, not even after that one time I randomly passed the fxck out at my desk. ... until now...      Last week, I got that message on Teams and the email. When she noticed my light was amber because I was on break, outside cutting the front yard, she sent me a text asking if I got them. I ran inside and checked, responded "on it" to her text, changed shoes and hopped in the truck to go to the center for the test.      13 minutes later, I walked into the center and signed in on the kiosk...

       As you may or not recall, I apparently have a son... I mean that as in only "technically," because legally, I only have a two daughters -- we don't use "step" in this house except in matters of extreme necessity. Rather than drag this tale through an infuriating side quest, I will send you [ here ] and ask that you return when you're ready to proceed. ... welcome back...      So yeah, son... We approached the period since he came to my house as more of a friendship than family, as our blood relation is honestly nothing more than a previously-veiled matter of inconvenient consanguinity. I say that to say we exchange text messages at random times of day, I send and receive memes and answer queries for advice -- again, as I might any of my friends. He has commendably and thankfully avoided employing terms that would have him refer to me as his father, even if he is growing to see me as a father figure. ... until I got a phone call after work... M...

(so we back on this?)      I tend to have to worry when things get a little too quiet. I've reached a moment where my routine is a little too... easy. So it's an otherwise mundane-ass Wednesday morning, 10am. I'm, naturally, spending my 15-minute break in my front yard leaving some pretty stripes. As a habit, to preclude people from talking to me, I usually have on my big headphones while I work in yards. This has been changed recently, as I think my wife misplaced my big headphones and I have finally taken to the habit of wearing a hat so I have updated to a pair of noise cancelling buds.      Why am I talking about trying to stay ahead of people distracting me? Naturally, of course, it is because someone decided to fucking talk to me. An unmarked-but-still-obvious police vehicle stops in front of my mailbox, but as a non-criminal (ha!), I continued what the fuck I was doing without approaching the car, I have 15 minutes to cut this front yard at le...

       I'm so into my shenanigous adventures that I often forget shit I've done soon after I've done it sometimes. As someone who so frequently goes outside JUST to do stupid shit I REALLY need to work on that, as I am often the member of my household chosen to go out and do the things; gas and grocery runs and such. Why am I telling you this?      Well this past weekend, I went on some errand runs with my wife. This naturally placed me in at least three retail establishments among the public. We're heading toward the registers when we -- well, I -- heard from behind us "aye, ain't you the n**ga man? When I say I *heard* him, I must explain that I heard it as background noise not terribly unlike what one would normally encounter in a Walmart. It was not until he approached and tapped me on the shoulder that I became aware that it was me that he was asking. Him: "Aye, bro, ain't you the n**ga man?" Wife Person™: "EXCUSE ME?!!?" Him: ...

       Y'know, sometimes it is hard for me to conceptualize people continuing to exist when I am done with them, or as it were when they're done with me...      In the summertime, work-work is slower and USUALLY lawn care is too because it doesn't normally rain in June like it just did. That said, I was "normal" at the bill-paying job and running ragged on the side hustle staying caught up in between storms.      On a particularly rainy day last week, my phone kept ringing. I should say that I've gotten an exorbitant number of spam and out-of-state calls from areas I have no business, usually shilling some kind of high interest loan I have no desire for. That said, I am adept at quickly dismissing them without interrupting whatever I'm doing on YouTube at a given moment.      On this day, though, I kept getting a particularly persistent call from a High Point number. The only person I have any business with who has a H...

       For the sake of moving this along... The weeks between December 17rd and February 7st was one of the most trying periods of my life and involved not one but THREE visits to the hospital, once through the ER. The months since have been a minefield of minding how I live and follow-up visits. If you know, you know... If you don't, well you get it.      The way my off time goes at my full time job, I am allotted 248 hours a year of off time in one bank for use for both vacation and sick time. I am allowed to roll over up to 40 hours at the end of the year, and that is a wise thing to have banked on some just-in-case shit. 18 years with the company, I've always had at least 25-30 hours to roll as a cushion until my allotment begins to build back up. This time, however, that late-year hospital stay set fire to nearly ALL of my leave time and I approached January with only like two hours. Because of this, I've spent the first half of this year S...

       Y'know, maybe I have been chasing the wrong things... I'm damn good at cutting grass. I'd like to think I'm a decent writer. The raise I've recently been served notice of at my full time job suggests that the person in charge of me is pleased with how I perform during bill paying hours. My daughters and grandbaby are ENAMORED with me, as is basically every dog I ever met.      But again, maybe I'm going about it all wrong. I've cultivated these abilities based on things that I was already serviceable at. I mean, I've unwillingly participated in a few criminal investigations into things that I may or not have been personally involved in, but I don't claim that. This all comes down to a phonecall I received last Saturday... Me: "Hello?" Them: "Phlip, what's up man?" Me: "Trying to keep it in the road, y'know... Sticky side down" Them: "Huh?" Me: "Enough smalltalk, get to it." Them:...

  I've been doing this all wrong...      It has occurred to me that everyone who has come to me -- be it as Phillip, Moe or Phlip -- for advice over the last few years has received whatever nonsense I could come up with on the spot. No thought was given to resolutions or even task-based problem solving, just "how can I make this person's situation as entertaining as possible for me?" The results have been documented in the pages of this very website if you've been around a while. Needless to say, a time was had.      But again I've been carrying this all wrong. Perhaps, perhaps maybe I've been seeding my own bad karma in seeking my own enjoyment in the situations of others and some of my outcomes have shown this. But what do I do about it?      I decided a few weeks ago that it was time for a change... But hold up a second... I have invested literally SO MUCH time into developing my thought processes to offer up anything rese...

  "Moe,      I'm a single guy... Wait, let me back up a second. I'm 27, college educated with a decent job in my major, work out four times a week, 6'1" and I'd like to think I'm a good looking guy. All that said, I'm still single. It hasn't been for lack of trying, of course. I've done the dating apps, I've shot my shot on social media, I've tried my hand at singles events, I've played the bars and as much as I might WANT to I have avoided creeping up my gym. I mean, I would like to think my desires are reasonable; a black woman with no kids (I want mine and hers to be out respective first), match my commitment to fitness and willingness to work into my financial goals for the future as a teammate. I don't know that if this is exactly your wheelhouse but I'm running out of ideas. Please help."      Well shit, we just all gas and no brakes this week, huh? Homie left me his phone number in the signature line of his...

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         I was away from you fine folks for a month in Mid-December, and then two and a half months from January until three weeks ago... Those who NEED to know what was shaking with me during that time know, but those that do not can rest assured that the absence was not fully voluntary or at all pleasant.     One thing I did a lot of between December 17th and March 26th was reflecting.  One might even say I was "brooding," brooding on what in my life I may have done to have foisted my current situation upon myself.  The worst thing for people in this kind of situation is idle time to think about it and lord knows I was damn near literally MADE of time, what with no yard work or outdoor exercise to get up to in the absolute dead of a brutal winter.     I sat and I stewed...  The longer I sat, the angrier I got.  As I said above, the more time I spent thinking on it all I somehow arrived to the conclusion that I was the ar...

       I've been away from y'all, but y'all have not been off my mind or out of my inbox. Just for the record, y'know... So at the beginning of March, I get an email in the Moe Phillips box with a request that kind of made my pressure go up a bit... "Moe,     My name is Belvin and I come to you with a quandary... I have two female friends from college, my wife knows them well and they're both involved with their own guys. They're planning a trip to a cabin the first weekend of spring and have asked me along. I naturally declined, as we have small children in my house and I didn't want to be a fifth wheel. Their explanation was that they wanted to spend the whole trip without having to exit the cabin except on foot, but none of them can cook well enough to make this work and that is where I come in, even offering to let me bring another friend from school to occupy me if the 'fifth wheel' thing was a concern. They FURTHER explained that I wou...