Personal Stories

Rita: [Phil has described several people in the diner] What about me, Phil? Do you know me too? Phil: I know all about you. You like producing, but you hope for more than Channel 9 Pittsburgh. Rita: Well, everyone knows that! Phil: You like boats, but not the ocean. You go to a lake in the summer with your family up in the mountains. There's a long wooden dock and a boathouse with boards missing ... read more

What's up with the lies? Don't get me wrong, I'm no saint, you know? But there's something about these women I've dated lately and this incessant need to create a facade from the beginning. There was the vegan health nut who drank too much, who after checking her gmail at my house on a Saturday had left the window open. She canceled meeting me to see a friend sing at church the next morning ... read more

When I was 25 and working at Oppenheimer, my first job on Wall Street, I saw an article about a Reebok 4-minute mile challenge. That is, if you were an amateur athlete and could break a four-minute mile, Reebok would give you a million bucks. Or maybe it was $100,000, whatever. I used to work out hours a day, every day and since I'd ended my streak of playing hoops every single day for more than ... read more

I often say that it's no longer about who you know, but what you know. The fact is that "who" you know does matter, but my point is that in this digital age when you can reach out and communicate with just about anyone if you're diligent enough, that "what" you know matters more to "who" you know than "who" you know matters to your success, however you may define it. At any rate, as a result of ... read more

I made the joke the other day with some of my colleagues that I'd become emotionally bankrupt. I was exaggerating, but man, I'd hit an emotional low a few weeks ago. I'd also made the joke that I wished I could buy calls on my emotional state, because it was certainly at a sentimental low. Nothing like catching your breath again, and were I now long those options, I'd probably peel a few of ... read more

August 1995 and I came back to the apartment I shared with my UNM basketball teammate, friend, all-WAC first teamer, Marlow White, because I'd forgotten my company cell phone, one of of those big black brick Motorola ones that were the first "handheld" back in the early 1990s. Across the sidewalk lived my teammate, friend, first round draft choice of the Miami Heat, Charles Smith, and a kid who'd ... read more

It was great to have that first snow in NYC this weekend. Great while it lasted, I guess, which wasn't long. On the other hand, there's nothing worse than NYC five days after a blizzard that hasn't melted -- the gray is everywhere. At any rate (man, I've been over-using that term lately...rusty from not writing?), I've not been out of the city for a few weeks again and I'm going stir crazy. ... read more

As my most recent effort at a meaningful, lengthy relationship crashed and burned in the last couple weeks, it dawned on me that I've been dating for more than two decades at this point. Twenty years. 7000 days. That's a hella long time. I suppose I do have some understanding (and even expertise, ugh) of how this relationship thing works out, whether talking weeks, months or years at this ... read more

I realized a few weeks ago that I'd been suffering my own version of writer's block. What do you write to get started once you've taken off as many weeks as I have. After all these years of relentless writing. And with a new career, new bosses, new colleagues, new girlfriends...oh, wait, no, that faded fast this past one. I've been feeling a lot of pressure about how to get started ... read more