1. Hi there. I hope everyone had a nice weekend. So now that we have the pleasantries covered, I want to share with you one of the best and most honest pieces of writing about obsessive-compulsive disorder I've read. 

1. Finding something to laugh about in the aftermath of tragedy can be helpful in the healing process. It's been difficult, however, to find much even to smile about relating to the horror in Charlottesville earlier this month. But now it appears that an unbelievable coincidence at ESPN is the closest we'll get.

1. "I'm going to start trying to post quick daily hits (during the week, that is; I like to relax really hard during the weekends) in addition to my occasional longer piece." - Me, August 17, 2017

2. My next post: August 23, 2017

​3. I am so freaking conflicted about football. I love watching it. I do. And I used to love doing fantasy and pick 'em leagues. I played in middle school. But now all we hear is this and this and this, and when you combine that with the 

I'm going to start trying to post quick daily hits (during the week, that is; I like to relax really hard during the weekends) in addition to my occasional longer piece. It'll just be things I think and stuff I find, and hopefully it provides some entertainment and reading material for people throughout their day. Maybe down the road, if more than like eight people are reading these, I'll turn it into a newsletter or something. But yeah, here's today's.

A few years ago, when I was living in New York City, I began to notice and admire the facades of a certain type of downtown building. I’m talking about the old brick-and-mortar walk-up apartments in neighborhoods like the East Village and Lower East Side, the kinds with fire escape ladders zigzagging down the front. It seemed like every building had a different combination of brick color and ladder color: tan brick with black ladders, red brick with green ladders, etc. And the more I actually looked at these beautiful buildings, the more it occurred to me that they looked vaguely...tasty. I started assigning them “flavors” in my mind. And then I started taking pictures of them. And then one day I decided to start putting them on Instagram with their flavors as captions.

Visceral discomfort takes hold, but I can still think logically and know I shouldn’t give in. The distress is too intense, though, the desire too strong. I can’t seem to help myself. And the anguish! My muscles are tense; my brain is hot. I want to scream. Why not just kill that pain right now, quick and easy? Why endure it until it fades when I can squash it?

Three Band Names and Three Random Cuts

A few more band names, and how the phrases actually came up in my life:
Mexican Toothbrush (My nephew is extremely proud of an extremely regular toothbrush he happened to have acquired in Mexico.)
Pubic Saroo (What I said out loud when the main character of Lion became a grown man.)
Rustic Sucker Punch (Actual phrase in an episode of Twin Peaks.)
Now that we've covered that, a few more thoughts:

One of the most difficult things about OCD is the treatment. It’s not talk therapy; there’s not a ton of “Tell me about your problems, and I’ll listen and reassure you that things are fine.” It’s kind of the opposite actually, and it’s called Exposure and Response Prevention, or ERP.

It sucks.

The theory behind ERP is logical and simple: The patient faces his or her fears until they don’t scare her anymore. Doing this is not so simple. To effectively battle your OCD, you have to consistently do things that make you feel terrified and uncomfortable. Anxiety becomes your world. It’s pretty awful.

I’ll give you few examples. ​

I'M NOT ALONE.

At least that's what I took from the S-Town podcast. If you haven't listened to it, stop reading my stupid blog right now and immediately listen to it. It's...it's better than my blog (at least until I give this more time and turn it into a world-dominating website). Anyway, as I do, I took one of the least important details of something and am now making it about me: in one of the episodes, a character says something like, "You so good, my legs so tired." Other character's response? "Sounds like a good name for a sexy nail polish color." (Or something to that effect.)

Which of course means it's NORMAL that I write down phrases I hear in everyday conversation because I think they would be funny band names. Also I don't just write them down. I interrupt people, even if I just met them, and say, "That'd be a great band name." Really good social skill.

Anyway, here are a few recent gems that have actually come up: 

​Whisper of Spice
World-Dominating Website (From earlier. Like a few lines up.)
Accidental Haiku
Golf Snacks
Ecosystem of Wealth (sounds like a crossword puzzle clue)
Slick Mittens
My Turkish Grandmother
Torched Cockles
Dusty Stubbs
Social Tofu
​Skeptical Store Dog
​Big Danish Goaltender

Happy to answer any questions re: the context in which any of these phrases actually came up. But in the meantime,

Ladies and gentlemen...SOCIAL TOFU!!!!

Several years ago I went to a good friend's 25th birthday party. Twenty-five is a big one: you've hit the quarter-century mark, you start to feel old for the first time, you can legally rent a car. My close friend deserved a nice gift from me to celebrate his meaningful milestone. So naturally I proceeded to give him a Dutch Masters bobblehead ashtray I stumbled upon at a gas station on the way to the party.