Personal essay + humor
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Bury me under the pyramid
This week I saw the dentist, and for some reason—insurance probably, or to make you feel bad about both your teeth and your body—the hygienist took my blood pressure. Then she took it again, and then a third time, and then she said that I should probably call my doctor, like, today. After telling her… Continue reading
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A traveler’s discontent: The midwest winter that never was
The suffering of my friends and the whole of Minnesota would increase my enjoyment of the warmer climes I currently inhabit. There’s just one problem. To see weather reports of winter back in Minnesota as I’ve traveled around the American Southwest in search of an escape from something that never really arrived in Minnesota this… Continue reading
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If my tombstone someday reads, “He tried,” I think that will be enough
My blog has visitor stats available and on some days I’ll check it and I’ll see that I have had zero visitors on a particular day. On big days, when I publish something, I might have 20 visitors. One day—I remember it fondly as June 29, 2023—I had 40 visitors, and that was the single… Continue reading
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Criteria for determining whether you are an adult
I’ve never really felt like an adult. I still feel mostly like a kid who has to do adult things like not have recess time on some days and make money to live. Meanwhile, there are people who seem very adultish to me, like doctors, who are saving lives, or people who govern and make decisions… Continue reading
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Nothing burns as bright with the spirit of Christmas as a desiccated Douglas fir on fire
I can’t decide if it is more sad as a single 46-year-old man to put up a Christmas tree for the holidays or more sad not to. It helps me to think of it like an Onion headline: “Sad man erects Christmas tree and places present for self underneath” or “Single man who ‘needed time… Continue reading
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In support of a national ‘Trading Places Day’ as a solution to America’s rural-urban divide
The rural-urban divide in America is real, and it’s getting worse. That’s why we need a national “Trading Places Day” where urban residents switch places with rural residents. Hear me out. Most cities in America of any size vote liberal, while most rural areas vote conservative. In fact, as a general rule, the farther away… Continue reading
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The reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated
It’s been a while since I posted, but it’s not because I haven’t been writing. Just the opposite, actually. When I started this blog last February it was more of a travelog, documenting my experiences living and working out of a camper in warmer climates to avoid some of Minnesota’s roughly 346 days of winter. … Continue reading
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Ask a financial advisor who is sick of your shit
Dear Advisor,I’m 49 and have $2.5 million in my 401(k) as well as $200,000 in a high-yield savings account. I earn $350,000 per year and put $35,000 of that in my 401(k)/403(b) plus a company match of 10%. I would like to retire at 57. Beginning at age 62, my wife and I will collect… Continue reading
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The chlorophyll will be destroyed – a fall missive
This is the last week of fall in most of Minnesota (and much of the Midwest). It comes every year, this last week, but rarely is it so definitive. An early cold spurt often causes some trees to give up a handful of their leaves too soon, leaving behind a thinning crown of only the… Continue reading
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BOGO on Lucky Charms
After avoiding it for more than three years I finally came down with Covid, and so this week used a grocery delivery service for the first time. I’ve typically been a slow adopter of consumer services that make it easier for you to never leave the house, because I’m the kind of person who already… Continue reading
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A large buffet of decay
Two days before I was supposed to get on a plane for a trip with some friends to Colorado that we’d been trying to put together for nearly a year, I got Covid. After avoiding it for more than 3 years, it has struck at the most inopportune time. As my friends headed from various… Continue reading
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Squirrels are devious agents of chaos
When I was about 15 or 16, I wrote a letter to the editor and submitted it to the Argus Leader, a South Dakota newspaper with its headquarters in my hometown of Sioux Falls. The letter was in response to some news that a squirrel had found his way into a power plant and electrocuted… Continue reading
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There is no better bathroom than an outhouse
I remember taking a shit over a log when I was little and wiping my ass with fallen leaves, as I had been instructed to do, mind you, by one or the other parental unit. It must have been early fall, a beautiful time of year when the leaves turn every color imaginable—including, inevitably, brown.… Continue reading
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I caught my wife in bed with the Dish Network guy and she tried to pawn it off as necessary to achieve a monthly discount
I’ve been struggling with what to write about the past several days because not much is happening in my life. I’m a single, 45-year-old man who lives a fairly leisurely existence. I work, I take walks, I fish, I workout, I cook, and I generally enjoy my life, but it doesn’t make for great material. … Continue reading
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I’ve lived in my home for 4 years and today I noticed a kitchen cabinet I’ve never seen
I was in the kitchen today and I noticed a thin cupboard door I’d never opened before. This isn’t the start of a fantastical piece of fiction where I opened the door and found a portal to a world I’d actually like to live in. It was literally a cupboard door I’d never opened. One… Continue reading
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Planks and post-pre-diabetic positive body image
I’ve never been a fan of diets. In fact, the fundamental role of exercise in my life is primarily to allow me to continue to eat excessive amounts of food that I find delicious. Were I ever to break a leg, it’s possible I’d inflate like an emergency life raft. It’s also true that I… Continue reading
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Ricky is a friend’s dog, but he wants to be my dog, I can tell
This weekend was a weekend of animals. A friend and her husband left town and needed a sitter for their dog, Ricky. Ricky is mostly a black lab, but he’s long and gangly and kind of goofy looking in the face, so he’s part something else—part nerd, I think. If there was a high school… Continue reading
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I love lamp
I saw a monarch butterfly todayA creature like a little painting that takes flightLittle more than air and art That’s a bit of a non sequitur, so here’s the real story: I found a lamp the other day, set out near the curb by a neighbor a few doors down. This same neighbor once set… Continue reading
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Deep thinks, by a guy who really loved Jack Handey (part 2)
This post is the promised second part in a two-part series that might become a three-part series (because I have a lot of them) about how when I first started using Facebook around 2008, I just posted various jokes and one liners, many of them potentially inappropriate for the medium, if there is such a… Continue reading
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Deadventures: Adventures for when you’re dead!
I once had an idea for a business where instead of spending money on a funeral, a person’s loved ones could send them on an adventure that they’d wanted to do in life but never got around to. This might be skydiving, or it might be a cruise to the Bahamas, or even a quick… Continue reading
About Me
I’m Adam. I’ve written humor columns for 3 print publications, so naturally that’s dead and here I am. For part of each year I travel to avoid Minnesota winters, writing about working from the road in my camper.