Out-Numbered

Maybe it's because my back is killing me. Maybe it's because I've had this chronic shooting pain in my leg since the summer. Maybe it's because the surgery that was supposed to fix it all doesn't seem to be working. It could be that someone less than considerate stole all of the damn tires off my Jeep the other night. Or perhaps it's that my oldest daughter told me to "fuck off" on Instagram the week before last. Whatever it was made me sit in my car, alone in the driveway, in silence. It made me pick up my phone and scroll through my voicemail messages. I wasn't checking for anything new. I was looking for something old.  I knew exactly where it was.  Third from the bottom, right after the message from the meatball when she was 3, asking me if I'd be home for dinner. Man, she had such a cute voice.  I save old voicemails like I save old photographs. I keep them stashed in their digital drawer and ...

Happy Birthday my brother. It's funny. I haven't really thought about it until now but your birthday is one of nine birthdays I have always remembered. Birthdays are like phone numbers. We don't need to remember phone numbers anymore. You plug em' into your contacts and you press a button when you need it. It's bullshit. To this day I remember exactly seven phone numbers. Five of them don't exist anymore and one of them is my mom's, which used to be mine. So I'm not sure that even counts. It's kind of a shame it doesn't work that way anymore. I think the love a person has for their friends and family can be measured in phone numbers and birthdays. I'm not taking about Facebook reminders and speed dial. I'm talking about knowing them by heart. If you knew someone's phone number by heart back then, it meant you needed  them. It meant you kept them close. It meant you talked with them. If you knew someone'...