Don Kowalewski
Writer. Ad Sales and Marketing. Social Media Content Creator. Aeropress Coffee. Makes the best salsa in the world.
Things I’m Doing: Singing Patriotic Lullabies
For better or worse, when I’m home, when I put the kids to bed, I still say prayers and sing songs. Yes. I sing. And so far, none of my kids have woken up and complained of nightmares. I’m not Frank Sinatra. Heck, I’m not even John Mayer (who is, I think we can all agree, an awful singer with awful songs …right?). But I hit about 70% of the notes I’m trying to hit and the kids haven’t complained …and my wife has never had a heart-to-heart and suggested that I read poetry, maybe, instead.
This week is a theme week and I’m singing “patriotic songs” in honor of the 4th of July, which I explained to my kids is the day American invented fireworks and hot dogs, and it’s also the day of the “great furniture store sale”, a day in American history when the people took to the streets and burned chairs and couches and demanded lower prices on furniture – and that, kids, is why you hear so many furniture ads on the radio right before the 4th of July.
I think kids should know their history.
Last night (because I have 3 kids and I sang each kid two songs), I burned through 5 classic Americana anthems (I think “anthem” is the right word). Should’ve been six songs, but one of the girls wanted to hear “Grand Ol’ Flag”, again. I think I know enough songs to sing some new ones every night, but am I singing the right American songs? For example, today I’m going to teach myself (well, remind myself) “Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “The Caisson Song”. Maybe even “Wild Blue Yonder.”
But now this is where you come in, dear reader. Keeping in mind I won’t sing anything by Lee Greenwood or Toby Keith or anything written after 1950 …what am I missing? I’m looking for “standards.” I won’t be up there singing James Brown’s “Livin’ in America” or “We Are the World”. Do you get what I’m saying? Do you get what I’m looking for?
Here’s my set list. What should be added (besides a drum, flute, and a guy carrying a flag)? Thanks for your help, and God Bless America.
“God Bless America”
“The Star Spangled Banner”
“Grand Ol’ Flag”
“Yankee Doodle Dandy”
“My Country ’tis of Thee”
“The Caisson Song” (if that’s actually the title)
“Wild Blue Yonder”
“Battle Hymn of the Republic”
“America the Beautiful” (that’s the one that starts ‘oh, beautiful for spacious skies’ …right?)
(EDIT, ADDITIONS)
“This Land is Your Land”
“Anchor’s Aweigh”
“Ballad of the Green Berets”
“Over There”
“When Johnny Comes Marching Home”
“The Marine Corps Hymn (From the Halls of Montezuma)”
See? This list is woefully short and I know I’m missing some staples that “every American should know.”
Help!
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Things I Did: Business Trip to Wisconsin, Part 1
I’ve decided I’m going to blog about my business trips. Not the “business” part, but the other parts that happen when I’m not working. This blog is mostly assembled for my kids …like a bloggy post-card. But if you like it, hey, more power to ya.
After about only 2-hours in Milwaukee I quickly came to the conclusion that, if I had to pick a new place to live (maybe because I turned states evidence against a mob boss and had to relocate my family with the help of the FBI), I’d pick Milwaukee …or some place in Wisconsin. It’s beautiful. It seemed lacking in humidity. There was cheese. Cheese stands and billboards for cheese and a complete and total statewide pride in cheese. I thought this was the stuff of legend and myth, like, “Seattle is known for coffee,” or, “make sure to get some authentic BBQ in Kansas City,” …and I’m sure those myths are true. But the cheese thing in Wisconsin? It’s everywhere and …it’s …awesome.
Wisconsin is awesome.
I forgot a belt for my trip.
Getting to Wisconsin means having to go through Chicago, and that was torture. I spent 3 hours each way in Chicago traffic. Next time, I’m taking the ferry.
I saw a giant cow statue.
In the quaint town of Fond du Lac, there were bikes hanging from trees.
Maybe I don’t notice it in Michigan, or in the other states I’ve visited, but at some point in history it was a big deal for a beer brand to claim a bar as a “Schlitz bar” or a “Pabst bar” …and times have changed and the windows are littered with your typical Budweiser and Miller neon signs and specials, I was fascinated by the old timey beer signs that still hung outside of dozens of pubs I passed.
Before I left for my trip, my 6-year-old said, “oh, boy, Daddy …Wisconsin! Bring me back some cheese.” I don’t know how she knew about this, but she knew even more than I gave her credit for. In Wisconsin, see, it’s not just a well-aged joke (ha! a cheese pun), but they truly love and celebrate their rich history of cheese. Every highway exit seemed to feature another cheese outlet, and this particular one I stopped at boasted over 150 varieties. It wasn’t an exaggeration. I opted for some beef jerky (because cheese doesn’t travel or ship too well), and some rice popcorn.
Another thing I try and do whenst traveling is visit local eateries. A man can only eat at Applebee’s, Chili’s, and Outback Steakhouse so many times before he snaps. And I’m not saying those places are all bad …if I grow tired of variety and the unknown and just need something familiar, the appeal of those places is their familiarity. However, in Milwaukee a friend of mine said I must eat at Sobelman’s, and their signature burger featured three kinds of cheese and jalapenos. It was incredible. Not to mention, the bartender and the waitress who chatted me up were ridiculously friendly. The friendliness of Wisconsin will be a topic for another blog post.
In the end, it was a great week. More to report tomorrow.
Things I Wonder: Are 15-Minute Bursts Working?
In two recent blog entries I talked about “getting stuff done” and how most of it is simply making a list and doing some of those things on the list. I wondered if, sometimes, we (certainly me) don’t accomplish things on our list because the list is too robust and out of our reach. If “run a marathon” is on my Wednesday “To-Do” list, well, guess what? It ain’t happening. Because if I did get to “run a marathon” today, I’d have to add “finish last will and testament” and “tell my wife I love her” to the list because those are things I’d want to do right before I died trying to run a marathon.
I think I could walk a marathon in my current state …but there would be no running.
Making a list, however, is a great place to start. Once you have a list, at least you’ll have a road map. And if “run a marathon” doesn’t get accomplished, you can adjust. Keep “run a marathon” as a long-term goal, but for your daily to-do list, make it “run for 15-minutes.” Eventually you can make that “run 3 miles” (which I won’t be doing in 15-minutes …more like 30-minutes …but that’s OK …it’ll take two of my 15-minute bursts, and it’s something I want to do).
For example, I’ve always enjoyed writing nonsensical things at spunkybean and sometimes people read my various recaps. It keeps my creative juices flowing, helps me write my other stuff, and it’s fun. A few people had asked me, “where are you Bachelorette recaps?” I had no excuses other than I used to spend an hour or more writing those things and making sure they were perfect, and funny, and then I’d want to make sure keywords and hotlinks and images were included, so I built up this “fun” bit of writing I’d always done into some huge, make-it-or-break-it project with a deadline. I started to stress out as if I was writing the State of the Union for the President when, in reality, it was nothing more than a sarcastic, silly recap of a ridiculous TV show.
So, I added “write recap of The Bachelorette” to my daily 15-minute burst to-do list, and viola! I spent 20-minutes Monday writing something. Then 20-minutes yesterday. And …if you go to spunkybean, you’ll see a Bachelorette recap.
And what about the rest of the stuff on my to-do list that I didn’t get done? Because I’m accomplishing so many little “bursts” of things, and I’m figuring out how to make a realistic daily to-do list, I still feel better and accomplished at the end of the day. This week, I exercised Monday and Tuesday. I wrote both days. I managed my workday in the same way (I didn’t blog about my to-do at work, but I’m approaching it the same way). I feel great.
Today’s to-do list looks very similar to my list from last week and the weekend, but it’s OK. I’ve spent a 1/2 hour on each of these things and unlike before, sitting there thinking each is a mountain or marathon of a task, I’m nearly done with at least six things here.
*** and now I have :50-seconds remaining to finish this blog ***
1. Write a blog entry on amazing actress friend for MSU Alumni blog
2. Write a blog entry on amazing reality-TV friend for MSU Alumni blog
3. Start writing TV-show pitch starring amazing friend in wheel-chair
4. Spray roof with mildew/mold remover
5. Clean out gutters
6. Clean crud off gutters
7. Finish Bachelorette recap for spunkybean and post.
8. Embed Stephen Colbert’s eulogy into a new post for tomorrow.
9. Start planning coffee party.
10. Start planning bowling party.
See you tomorrow. Good luck with your list of :15-minute bursts of awesome.
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Things I Did: Switched Shampoo
This is difficult for me to talk about, but here goes nothing. I had dandruff. I itched and saw flakes and it was hard for me to go out in the streets. So I did what any normal dude would do …I switched to Head & Shoulders. Hell, it’s been around for 50 years (I didn’t look that up) and because of how prevalent it is, and all the commercials I’ve seen over the decades, I just assumed, “hey, every dude must have this problem and I guess this is what I should do.”
Flash forward 4 months (from when I switched to Head & Shoulders, not from this moment) and there I was sitting in my hair stylist’s chair and she says to me, “what shampoo are you using?”
“Why,” I asked with dread and apprehension in my voice?
“Because your hair is very dry and thin and weak,” she went on.
I immediately broke into tears and near hysterics and she and some other stylists had to restrain me and quickly took the gourmet coffee they give me and replaced with calming tea and invited me to the shampooing station. What followed, for the next few hours, was a recommitment to proper shampooing and conditioning, a pledge to use room temperature water (or colder) when shampooing, and overall, a commitment to better hair products.
I’m proud to say, 4 weeks later (which is right now, not four weeks from today), my hair is vibrant and alive and a source of pride once more. The ladies at the hair consulting agency (you may call this a “salon”) switched me to a mild Paul Mitchell product intended to build body and moisturize and I can tell you right now …it worked.
Thank you, Svetlana and thank you Paul Mitchell. It all goes with my “top-down” theory. It starts with your head of hair and if you get that right, it “trickles down” to your brain, your words coming out of your mouth, the sparkle in your eyes, the song in your heart (which, for me, is Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” … always), and a pep in your step.
Thanks, dear readers, for listening. Thanks, in advance, for the supportive Facebook and Twitter comments. It’s been a rough month of June, but summertime and the rest of 2013 will be all right. No …it will be GREAT.
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Things I’m Doing: 15-Minute Bursts
I wasn’t kidding when I wrote yesterday’s blog post. I’m really going to try “15-minute bursts” of creativity and activity and see what that does for my accomplishments and to-do list. It worked great for one day. I didn’t get everything done on my to-do list, but I felt alot less overwhelmed and now, a day later, after accomplishing soooooooo much, I feel super optimistic and a little more realistic about the list.
Interestingly enough, one of my favorite bloggers (The Write Now! Coach) wrote something very similar, and I loved it. Must be something in the news that triggered a blog entry about time-management of all of us.
“You may be wondering, ‘How will I ever finish my book this way?”’Yeah, when you have a big goal like writing a book, taking baby steps does sound a bit counterintuitive. Think about it this way. If you wrote just 200 words a day—that’s less than a double-spaced page—you’d have a 73, 000-word book at the end of the year. Wow.” -Rochelle Melander, The Write Now! Coach
New philosophy …when planning a day full of activity and “bursts”, I think I need to be more realistic in defining those bursts. For instance, we can’t put “climb Mt. Everest” on our list and plan to spend 15-minutes doing it, with the assumption that, “hey, if I spend 15-minutes a day climbing toward the peak of Mt. Everest, and not a minute more, eventually I reach the summit.” While technically it’s true, it’s also not something that should be on my list for yesterday or today considering (a) I’m in Michigan, (b) I’ve never climbed anything and don’t have a plan, gear, or expertise, and (c) I have a job, family, and life to live.
The point is, long-term and “big goals” need a separate list.
(7.5 minutes)
If climbing Mt. Everest was my goal, maybe my list would include a bullet-item like, “check-out book on climbing Mt. Everest from my library.” That’s something I can easily do in a 15-minute burst and then I’m inching myself ever closer.
In reviewing my list, did I include a “Mt. Everest” item? Maybe. Maybe trimming the big bush in front of my house was a little over-reaching and was more than a 15-minute job. It took nearly 45-minutes. But ya know what …I couldn’t have stopped at 15-minutes. My front yard would’ve looked like crap. Heck. It took almost 10-minutes to get the ladder, hedge trimmer, saw, lawn/leaf bags, and my extension chord out.
In the end, I felt mega-accomplished and when I sat for a few minutes on my couch last night to watch a little TV, it was more relaxing because I knew I had a full day.
(10 minutes)
1. Write a blog entry on amazing actress friend for MSU Alumni blog
2. Write a blog entry on amazing reality-TV friend for MSU Alumni blog
3. Start writing TV-show pitch starring amazing friend in wheel-chair
4. Spray roof with mildew/mold remover
5. Clean out gutters
6. Clean crud off gutters
7. Finish Bachelorette recap for spunkybean and post.
8. Spend 2-hours writing for my writing/social media clients.
9. Embed Stephen Colbert’s eulogy into a new post for tomorrow.
10. Start planning coffee party.
11. Start planning bowling party.
(14 minutes)
I went back and proof-read this, just now.
(17 minutes).
And the fact I spent two extra minutes on this blog entry doesn’t bother me one bit.
Things I Will Do: Check-Off Everything on this List
One of these days I’m going to have a burst of inspiration and it’s going to stick. One of these days I’m going to change my life, take control of my life, stop letting life happen to me, and make life happen.
Is that cliche enough for ya?
Maybe today’s the day. Well, today is a day where I’m feeling shot-out-of-a-cannon and can’t wait for the day to get started. I’m going to sell. I’m going to write. I’m going to create. I’m going to tell a story. I’m going to call friends I haven’t called. I’m going to smile at everyone I meet. I’m going to set appointments. I’m going to close a sale. I’m going to have a great conversation with a good friend.
(4-minutes)
And I’m going to do it in 15-minute intervals.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m traveling quite a bit with this new job. I should’e marked on a calendar how many nights I’ve spent in hotels since March 1st. I’m guessing I’m pushing 40 nights away from home. Gulp. Well, for a while, I was using all the time traveling and driving around to listen to music until this last trip. Good friend Myndi suggested I start downloading some Podcasts and I had been ignoring that advice, and then I stopped ignoring that advice.
Podcasts are great. And there’s a podcast for just about any topic. I chose a few on writing and grammar (Grammar Girl, I Should be Writing, and Writing Excuses), a couple of funny and entertaining podcasts (Sklarbro Country and Comedy Bang Bang), and a few self-help and motivating choices (Get-it-Done Guy and Good Life Project).
These last two have been the most meaningful. Good Life Project podcasts are 30- to 45-minutes with an author or someone fascinating and it’s unfiltered insight into how their mind works. And what I like, is that I can take little bits of brilliance from each podcast and apply it. I can’t apply everything, but I can apply quite a bit. It’s like a reminder to step back and take a deep breath, and revisit your “plan” (if you had a plan) or make a plan.
(9-minutes)
Gotta quick finish this up …I only gave myself 15-minutes to write and post this blog entry …and that’s because something in Good Life Project said I should break tasks into 15-minute segments. When we spend hours and hours on something, we’re either intimidated by the thought of spending all those hours or it’s self-destructive.
For me …it’s true. Every day I say, “I need to write on my blog,” and then I don’t because I see the task as being something that will take me nearly an hour …even though I know it doesn’t have to.
(13-minutes)
So, I’ll conclude with this. I feel better for not entirely finishing my thoughts and this blog entry and I have something “to be continued” on tomorrow’s blog. I set a timer for 15-minutes and those 15-minutes are nearly finished and I’ll quickly start my to-do list and blog a little more atcha tomorrow. Do you have 15-minutes, right now, to do something you’ve been meaning to do? Get started – that’s the most important part.
1. Write a blog entry on amazing actress friend for MSU Alumni blog
2. Call J.S.
3. Call M.W.
4. Write a blog entry on amazing reality-TV friend for MSU Alumni blog
5. Start writing TV-show pitch starring amazing friend in wheel-chair
6. Spray roof with mildew/mold remover
7. Trim big bush in front of my house
8. Clean out gutters
9. Clean crud off gutters
10. Write quick Bachelor recap for spunkybean.
11. Stop worrying that I didn’t properly link all the references in this blog entry.
12. Revisit this blog-entry and insert hyperlinks to all my references. Check spelling, grammar.
13. Spend 15-minutes promoting this blog entry via Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and every place else I can think of sharing it in 15-minutes.
14. Read two blogs from people I hope read my blog.
15. Finish Bachelorette recap for spunkybean and post.
Phew. This felt great. And my coffee is still warm.
(17-minutes)
Things I’m Doing: Getting Better at Traveling
Traveling. Let’s talk about it. I know I’m not the only guy who’s ever had to travel, and I’m betting I’m not the only one who’s had to adjust. The first few trips made me feel isolated, incredibly guilty about leaving my family, and anxious. I couldn’t sleep more than two hours at a time. I stayed up too late (thinking that being “over tired” would help me sleep better) and woke up too early.
I’m on my way to remedying that, however. I’m taking control of my travel. If you travel, you have to “take control” or I think you’ll go insane. A few weeks ago, I met-up with my Uncle and Cousin while on a trip out east – had dinner with my Uncle two nights in a row, actually. And this week, while spending four days away, I met up with my old college roommate, Tim. I didn’t plan anything because, well, if you plan something to the minute, something will get screwed up. Instead I called him around lunch-time, said I’m in town, and he and his family happened to have a free evening.
It was great. We determined we hadn’t seen each other, and talked only minimally, in about 6 years …and, yet, we spent two hours together and it’s like we just saw each other a few weeks, ago. Laughed about our old antics (velociraptor attacks, Civilization in the MSU computer labs, and turning every life scenario into a scene from A Few Good Men), exchanged philosophies of life, and we even went shopping. Yes, seriously. We went shopping.
6 years is too long. On Monday, we only spent about 2 1/2 hours eating dinner and sharing a few beers, but I could’ve hung out with him for 6 hours or 6 days – which is why we said we MUST plan a big, group cruise at some point in the future.
To remedy my sleep situation, I also decided I need to exercise every night and then get to bed slightly earlier (rather than later) and limit my computer/TV/iPad time because that light is said to disrupt sleep patterns. I’m happy to report, I had two good nights of sleep. I still woke up, inexplicably, at 4 a.m. both nights, but I found it easier to get back to sleep.
I did exercise both nights. Did a very, very slow run-walk thing on Monday and had about a 13-minute pace. Tuesday I did some weights and then ran a mile. Check it out …I ran (well, jogged) a 12-minute mile at a 1.5 incline on the treadmill. Hey. Don’t laugh. It’s a start. And considering last week, out of the blue, I had a slight lung-blood flair up, this is a big step.
‘Tis a pretty boring blog entry, I know. And I could make it more boring by telling you about how I sorta have a crush on Holiday Inn, but I’ll save that for another entry.
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Things I Have: Bad Habits
I always liked this saying … “if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.” Get it? Like, there are two kinds of “luck” …good luck and bad luck and …tell me you “get it?
For me, it’s more like, “if it weren’t for bad habits, I’d have no habits at all.” Now, I don’t smoke or drink excessively, I don’t bite my nails, I don’t hoard things in my house, pick at scabs, do heroine, play Angry Birds, or play Angry Birds on heroine or anything …but I still do little things to sabotage myself. Is it sabotage? Is it laziness? Is it fear?
Not sure. But I’ll call them bad habits.
ha-bit:
a dominant or regular disposition or tendency; prevailing character or quality
Case in point …sleep. I know I need it. I need 7-hours each night and I do amazing things when I get around 7 1/2 or 8-hours. I envy these people who build empires and small businesses, and write novels and travel the world and boast about how they manage it all on 5-hours of sleep each night (hmmmmm …maybe I need to revisit 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferris …I think he has a chapter about how he makes this work through diet alone). When I try and manage my day on 6-hours or less …forget it. I may as well call in sick.
What happens is a spiral …I’m tired, I’ll clear my mind with some senseless work and then I’ll be ready to kick some butt. Problem is, that “butt kicking” moment never comes. And no matter how much coffee I consume, or how good that coffee is, I’m pretty much useless.
When I get 8-hours, I can pick up the phone and talk with anyone. I don’t get frustrated about anything. I dream bigger and I tell myself “yes you can” more than I say “no you can’t” or “no, take a nap, then you can.”
So, my bad habit? Staying up too late. Morning-Don really hates Nighttime-Don.
Staying up late isn’t really a badge of honor. Nobody I know has ever bragged about how late they stay up and I suspect, when they’re “bragging” about how little sleep they get, they’re not really bragging, but mostly they can’t think of anything else to say because their subconscious is continually screaming at them, “SLEEEEEEEP, you fool.”
Other bad habits I’m trying to break …not exercising and eating massive amounts of calories after 8 o’clock (which often times is simply an exercise of moving my hand from a bowl to my mouth because I can’t fall asleep when I’m actively doing something, like chewing). And finally …not writing. I want to write a book (more than a few, in fact). I want to write a blog and build a following. I want to help my friend write a book, and another friend and I want to collaborate on a book …and yet …I do nothing.
I need new habits.
“Early to bed. Early to rise. Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” -Too Tired to Look it Up, but I Think It’s Ben Franklin.
Habit #1: Exercise for 1/2-hour each day. Something as simple as a walk. Maybe mix in some P90x.
Habit #2: Write for 5-hours each week. Notice I didn’t say “daily” because that’s not realistic with three kids and a full time job (oh, and a wife I kinda-sorta like to talk to and hang-out with every now and then).
Habit #3: Get in bed by 10 o’clock. Screw TV. Why do I feel compelled that I must watch TV and always watch “my shows.” Culture tells us we should, I guess, and I’ve always enjoyed the escapism, and I even enjoy writing about it (remember spunkybean?). But I gotta stop being a slave to the boob-tube.
I’ll start with those. Sound good? It’s almost time for Mid-Year’s Resolutions, which I’ve always talked about as a “reset” button for your New Year’s Resolutions. And I figure, hey, why wait until July 1st …I’ll get started, now, with my Mid-Year’s Resolutions.
Thanks, in part, goes to Rochelle Melander (The Write Now Coach) for always writing great blog posts about writing, but truly, anything she says you can substitute the word “writing” with almost any verb, and the lesson still applies. Don’t believe me, check out her blog post this week …”The Writing Habit.” She suggests a sequence of “cue”, “practice”, and “reward” and tell me that couldn’t be applied to anything and everything. Go ahead. Tell me. In the comments below, or on Facebook, or Tweet at me (@donkowalewski).
Better yet, make it a habit of telling me what you’re doing habitually. Thanks for reading.
Follow me @donkowalewski.
Things I’m Doing: Traveling and Keeping a Journal
OK. I’m traveling and as I said in a previous post, I’m going to try and make the best of it. I get homesick, and I’m sure that’s normal, but I’ll only keep my sanity if I enjoy the adventure …notice I’m calling it an “adventure” and not a “job” or “sentence.” It’s all in positioning. Can you tell I used to work in advertising? Thing is …the job is very cool, the product I’m selling is amazing, and I really enjoy telling the story.
This blog is going to morph into a blog about traveling, selling, and motivation. It might be funny. It might interest you. But, my main hope, is that’ll it will be interesting to my kids. Like, hey …check it out? I was in Kansas City and drove right by the Royals’s stadium. And look …two nights ago I was in Joplin on the same day that horrific tornado hit Moore, OK and the storm system took the highway up to Joplin, MO and I spent a combined 90-minutes (7:00-7:45 and 10:45-11:30) in the shelter areas inside the hotel where I was staying. And there were dogs, cats, babies, and all sorts of random things in there with me …it wasn’t all hotel guests. I guess there’s some unwritten rule that if you’re a public place and have shelter, and the tornado sirens are going off, well, I guess you have to let people inside.
Here’s the TV we were watching while in the shelter area? For the record, Wings v. Blackhawks was also on, but nobody in Joplin, MO seemed very interested in flipping back and forth.
My travels this week took me from St. Louis, to Columbia, MO …to Kansas City, MO …then to Joplin, MO …then to Springfield, MO …and today I’ll wind my way back up to St. Louis and hop a flight back to Detroit.
Follow me at @donkowalewski for constant updates from the road, when I’m on the road, and random, pithy observations when I’m at home and, say, washing dishes and what not.
Things I’m Doing: Traveling (and Making the Best of It)
So, only two blog entries ago, I was lamenting about hard it is living a life of a traveling salesman. Which makes this blog entry a little hypocritical, but since it’s my blog, I’m going to completely contradict myself. I want to be clear – I miss my family like crazy and the cool and interesting moments are few and far between. Like tonight, I’m staying at a hotel in Flushing, NY and a roaring jet at LaGuardia takes off and lands every :72-seconds and my hotel room is smaller than the smallest bedroom in my house, and the A/C unit seems to have two settings …well, three settings. (1) Meat-locker cold. (2) Muggy-mildew damp air. (3) Let-me-outta-here heat.
I like to think of myself as one of those “when life hands you lemons” types. Granted, I handed myself these lemons when I accepted this new job barely 11 weeks ago, so don’t cry for me. I just didn’t realize traveling makes a man (or woman) feel so isolated. Luckily, on this particular trip, I ended up spending two nights in Providence, RI and that’s a stones throw from my Uncle Roger. This Uncle (I’m not sure why I’m explaining this since most of my readers are family) lived in Boston my entire life, and I never got to know him like my other Uncles. Why we never took a trip to Boston as a family, I’ll never know, because that would’ve been a cool trip. And his family didn’t make it back to Michigan all that often. He had two sons, my cousins Ben and Kyle, and similarly, they were distant.
Quick aside …reconnecting with family is a brilliant and beautiful benefit of Facebook and social media. I’m 39 and my cousin Kyle is 32(ish) and in the past 4 or 5 years as “Friends” on Facebook, we’ve interacted more than we did our first 30 years …and it’s great. We compare neck ties.
Anyway, an unexpected bonus on this trip was being able to have dinner with my cousin Kyle, once, and with my Uncle Roger, twice. And I gotta say, it was great. I was feeling particularly homesick, so to be able to drink a beer and share some stories with family was a welcome mid-week pick-me-up.
Downtown Providence is quaint and cool. We ate Italian the first night, and vegetarian the second night. We ate at The Grange and I had Fiddleheads as an appetizer. It’s a New England thang, I guess. They remind me of asparagus (both in taste and after-effects) but they were interesting looking (they look like the head of a fiddle) and they proved if you put garlic and butter on anything, it’ll taste great.
And on the final night, I spent the night in Flushing, NY, just 5 minutes from the airport, and the “concierge” (I use the term loosely) said I could grab some dinner up on “main street.” That sounded hunky dory …until I got to “main street” and realized, hey, this must be New York’s Chinatown. Or Koreatown. Or Japantown (if that’s even a thing that exists). It was definitely Asian-something. I was in search of a salad or a sandwich and the only English words that were catching my eye were “dumplings”, “lunch-dinner” (which seemed entirely too vague), and “spa” and I think we all know what that means. And then, like a desert Oasis, there across the street I saw a pizza place – a real, live genuine pizza place with only enough room for counters where customers could stand and eat, and a giant pizza oven. It was a perfectly New York moment for a sheltered midwestern guy like me …pizza served by a guy with a thick Italian New York accent in Chinatown with thousands of people walking by, a bus honking at a cab, and me, taking pictures of it like a total tourist.
(Note: I confirmed when back at my hotel that, indeed, it was Chinatown)
When all hope was lost, I got pizza and a big, ice-filled Coke.
So, the morale of the story is …traveling still sucks, but you gotta make the best of it. The same can be said about the 12 sales calls I made. Sure, I wanted all twelve to be stellar and amazing …but they weren’t. However, the “good” calls were so good, it more than cancels out the bad. Dinner with my Uncle and experiencing some authentic New York moments didn’t completely wipe away my heart ache and my missing my kids and wife, but it helped.
Tomorrow night? I hope to be eating some chicken nuggets and mac n’ cheese and lovin’ every minute of it. Thanks again, Uncle Roger, my soon-to-be clients who I think it’ll be awesome to work with, and New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island …you were great.
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Don Kowalewski 