I Don't Have Enough Middle Fingers For All Of You.

My name is Matt. I'm from Rhode Island. I enjoy blogging and I am an avid farter.

[donewithfish]

Yesterday

I brushed the snow off my truck and then took it for a ride because I had actually never driven it in the snow and I wanted to see how it handled (it was my father's truck that I bought off my stepmother after he passed away in February of 2022). So yeah, it sucked in the snow because it's not a 4x4 and that's what I expected. So I parked it in front of my house and went to step out of it but I stepped on a patch of ice and slipped and absolutely shredded my left hip and knee. My knee is the size of a volleyball. I've been walking around all day on crutches, which would have been hilarious a month ago when I could do my Tiny Tim impression, (But father? Why does Mr. Scrooge hate Christmas so much? Nobody wants to hear that shit mid-January) So I'm going to the doctor tomorrow and I'm guessing that I'm going to be out of work for a little while, which I would normally welcome, except I'm not really in a financial position to do that at this point. Anyway, I know I haven't really been around here much but I want you all to know that I love all of you. Especially you.

[donewithfish]

Happy Birthday

Frank Zappa. We would have all been better off if you hung around a little longer. Take cover, the world is exactly as you predicted 30 years ago.

[donewithfish]

So, I don't really post here

very often, and I miss it, because it was a huge part of my life in 2009? 2010? 2011? I don't remember exactly. I just know that we were all here in the mornings with our kids and our music and our dranks and it was a lot of fun. There were people who have since passed on and there were people who weren't even who they said they were, but I really do miss the thing we did back then, and I don't think there's any way to recapture it. It's too bad, because I used to look forward to the mornings where we got our days going together and our evenings when we shut things down together. It was fun. You know what I'm talking about if you were there. Cheers.

[donewithfish]

I'm painting

my house. I've washed and scraped and primed one side of it. I'm going to paint it black. I just have to decide what color the pentagram is going to be.

[donewithfish]

I had a dream last night

that I was listening to a Billy Squier album on vinyl and some lady came up to me and said, "Is this Al Molinaro?" and I said, "No, this is Billy Squier" and I picked up the album cover to show her but when I looked at it there was a picture of Al Molinaro on the cover.

[donewithfish]

On Friday, July 21st,

one of my friends and co-workers got out early. It was around 1:00 pm. I talked to him for a few minutes before he punched out. I told him to have a nice weekend and then he left.

I didn't think anything about the interaction. I talk to him every day. There was nothing out of the ordinary. He's a lot younger than me (23 years) but I've worked with him for ten years and we became friends during that time, even though there is an age difference. I've given him advice on his kids and his life choices and have generally been a friend to him. I helped him move. He was one of maybe five or six coworkers that I actually considered a friend.

Seven hours after he left work on that Friday, July 21st, 2023, he shot somebody in the head. I don't know the details, but he shot somebody in the head. The victim lived for a few days in the hospital. My friend was charged with felony assault and battery along with several other felony weapons charges. Then, the victim succumbed to his injuries. He's dead. Charges were upped to second degree murder.

The victim was a pillar of the community. He did two tours in Iraq. He was only trying to break up an altercation between my friend and his friend. Now he's dead, and my friend is in prison, awaiting trial for murder. I am not sympathetic to my friend at all, but I am struggling with the whole thing.

He's probably going to be locked up for life, and that is most likely appropriate. I lost a friend, but at the same time, he deserves what he gets. I just would have never guessed that he had that in him. It's disappointing. And now two boys are going to grow up with a father who is in prison forever. There are no winners in this. I wish I could have been there to stop it. Unfortunately, there's no going back.

[missambiguous]

Aaaaaaaand… that’s a wrap. I’m out!

[donewithfish]

Nine years ago today, Lisa quit her job and moved to Rhode Island. 

[donewithfish]

@missambiguous

lives in Rhode Island with me. It’s been nine years. The best nine years of my life. Time flies when you’re having fun.

[missambiguous]

Bitter-sweet is still bitter. But sweet.

It’s been a while since the last time, but my husband was in my dream last night. The dreams follow a pattern. It’s incredible to see him, touch his hair, talk to him. But he rarely speaks back and the message is always the same. He’s not staying. Any of dozens of scenarios that all result with him gone. But last night, he said he just had to leave and I whispered in his ear “Thank you for our Boy. He means everything to me.”

Part of me thinks he’s really visiting me.

[donewithfish]

I have a shortcut on my toolbar that just goes to a random @missambiguous post. This one is from right before we started to do our own thing together. When I read this, I just think “As much as I love both of you, I wish I had never met either one of you, because that would mean his father and your husband would still be alive.” But here we are. I’m doing the best I can to fill in for him. I’d like to think we’ll meet someday.

[missambiguous]

I'm moving this summer and it's all I can think about.

I’ve never done something so outside-the-zip-code in my life. I’m having trouble putting into words exactly how I feel about leaving here and going to RI and I’ll just say that the pros far outweigh any cons I can think of and I am so excited to start this next big thing in our lives. My son was only one when my husband died and the family experience I was just starting to enjoy went away so quickly, like someone threw a hood over my head. I woke up five or so years later groggy and yearning for sunlight. And I found it and I appreciate it so much and I don’t think there is anything, no matter how near or dear, that could stop me from accepting this challenge and taking my boy by the hand to continue our adventure from inside a new zip code with Matt and his boy and his family. It makes it easier that my own family will never be far away, in thoughts or in miles.

You can too be a Yankees fan in Rhode Island. There are lots of them, so I hear. And even if there weren’t and I were surrounded by the full-on red sox nation, I honestly wouldn’t give a hoot because you can take the girl out of NY but blah blah blah Yankees… Blame my mother.

I am so pumped to get rid of lots of the shit I have accumulated over the years. I want to move as little as possible. And I want to do it all right effing now and just get started living already but school and job, and stuff.

Speaking of job… To the Powers That Be: It would take cutting through a lot of red tape but there’s a slim chance I could keep part of my job when I (we) move to Rhode Island this summer and my boss and the big boss are for it but committees and policies and whatifs and whatnot because I would be the first non-IT person permitted to work remotely and from so “far away” and my fingers are all kinds of crossed because even though I complain A LOT about this job it’s a job I really like and a break like this would not go unappreciated every single day and I would be ever so grateful to not have to start over in a new state, so pretty pretty please? Goodthoughtsgoodthoughtsgoodthoughts…

Serious note: If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions to ease the mind of an almost-eight year old who will be leaving behind all he knows and going to a new school next year, we would truly, deeply appreciate it.

[donewithfish]

I just came across this so I wanted to let whoever is still here know that the eight year old is now seventeen, he’s as big as a house, he has lots of good friends and has adjusted splendidly. He’s also a Mets fan. 

[donewithfish]

Happy Thanksgiving!

[donewithfish]

I saw this on TikTok when I should have been working. If you have an iPhone and you want to take a cool night photo, take a 10 second exposure, set the brilliance to -25, put the contrast all the way down and then set the brightness to whatever level you like. All of a sudden you’re Ansel fucking Adams.

[donewithfish]

Remember that time

when you were 6-7 years old and an adult asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up and you said “an oceanographer” even though you didn’t really even know what that was and then a few days later you were 52 and you still didn’t know what you wanted to do when you were grown up but for the time being you were delivering canned and bottled liquids to people that would get them fucked up and cause all sorts of problems for society and those liquids would get people killed and also kill people and ruin people’s lives but hey, it’s a living.

[donewithfish]

I Love Everybody

I’ve been working inside on the forklift instead of driving a truck and delivering since May. The pay is the same (although less overtime/ almost no overtime) and it is much easier on my body. I am basically alone all day. I talk to 3-4 coworkers before we start in the morning, and then again when we are punching out. I have a Bluetooth speaker on my ride, so I just listen to music and move pallets of beer from one place to another. It’s fucking awesome.  Last night I got a call from my employer letting me know that they were shorthanded and they were going to need me to go on the road today. I don’t want to go on the road, but they don’t have enough bodies to get the beer out. I said okay. Two hours later I called in sick so now I’m sitting in my office with a cocktail at 12:30 pm telling the internet about it.

[donewithfish]

A deer showed up in front of my house yesterday and then ran up the street to my father’s house (the one with the brick front…I live across the street from the house I grew up in). I can’t help but think it was my dad’s patronus, if you believe in that kind of thing.

[donewithfish]

I got suspended from Twitter yesterday because I responded to something stupid that Geraldo Rivera tweeted with “Shouldn’t you be somewhere getting a chair thrown at your face?” and they warned me that I shouldn’t have tweeted that before I tweeted that but I did it anyway because a long time ago Geraldo got a chair thrown at his face. Whatever. Anyway, I’m limited on Twitter for the next seven days even though there are millions of people tweeting things that are far worse. Hi. Enjoy your day.

[donewithfish]

Hello

I guess I’m Tumblring again. That’s probably good, because I didn’t like the way it ended.