I Bring Nothing to the Table

Category: Fukubukuro

  • March: Let’s Get Physical [Fukubukuro 2011]

    Back in July or August of last year, during the last softball game of the season, I was chasing a ground ball just beyond my reach in right field. I overextended, lost my balance, and came crashing down on my left arm with all my momentum. I quickly propped myself back onto my feet with […]

  • February: The Perfect Storm [Fukubukuro 2011]

    Is there any worse time to be a month into a relationship than February? Less time than that and you can both laugh it off as unimportant. I mean, you barely even know each other, amiright?! More time than that and you’ve already established some rhythms. You’re working more as a unit and you have […]

  • January: The Concert Curse [Fukubukuro 2011]

    I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before in this space, but I was not a frequent concert attendee prior to my undergraduate degree. It’s partly not living in a major hub in high school, part a disdain for live music that I have since lost, and part a sense of urgency as I feel myself aging. […]

  • Fukubukuro 2011

    Man, 2011, right? Last year was the debut of my Fukubukuro (福袋, lit: lucky/mystery bag) series in which I look at the things that happened to me over the year and write about them. It’s deeply personal in a way that I never wanted this blog to be back in 2008, but also in a […]

  • December: Reel People In Movies [Fukubukuro 2010]

    After watching Inception for the sixth time this year I mentioned to my friend Jenn that I was still loving and enjoying finding all the subtleties and nuances within the film. She countered that she didn’t really like the movie and questioned why I did. It got me thinking and, naturally, inspired this piece. Inception […]

  • November: Hip Hop Animosity No More [Fukubukuro]

    I stopped listening to hip hop back in 2003. If you asked me then, I’d probably say that it stopped being any good around then. Reality probably aligns more closely with a teenage counter-culture attitude that started to manifest not long after I hit my Junior year of high school. I’m not complaining too much; […]

  • October: Sleepwalk With WTF [Fukubukuro]

    One day Mike Birbiglia woke up and decided that he was going to fundamentally change his comedy and make it more personal. Who am I kidding? The guy was already shifting in that direction before his one-man show, “Sleepwalk With Me”, debuted off-Broadway. Before things got personal, he was already sharing his “Secret Public Journal” […]

  • September: April Smith and the Great Date [Fukubukuro]

    Risky. I’d seen The Girl twice before. Once at an Orioles game, where we chatted more than we watched baseball. She was a friend of a friend and I didn’t expect to see her again. The next time I saw her was at my own house, during my housewarming party. The friend I knew brought […]

  • August: Violence [Fukubukuro 2010]

    It all started with Metal Gear Solid. Hideo Kojima is a pacifist. How do I know this having never spoken to him? It’s the only logical explanation behind Metal Gear Solid. Big whoop, I mean, the games themselves are about as overtly in support of pacifism and nuclear non-proliferation, but I’m not talking about the […]

  • July: Treading Water [Fukubukuro 2010]

    I have lived in twelve different “homes”. They range from dorm rooms to full-on apartments, row houses, and houses, but each represented a change in my lifestyle and a milestone reached in my personal development. The way I see it, moving around so much can cause two equally strong reactions in a person. If you’re […]