J.J. Goodman: Writings, Musings and More

You know what sucks? Global pandemics.   (Um… yes?) Yes. I last worked a full day wearing dress shoes and a button-down shirt on March 11,2020. We left for vacation the next day, and the day after that the world went off the rails on a crazy train to hell and forgot the handbasket. When we returned, we went into quarantine and never looked back. I’ve maybe been in the office a half a dozen times since, for no more than an hour or two at a pop, to retrieve or print documents. Otherwise the wife and I have been home, each of us working full-time from our respective spots in the ol’ homestead. And you know what else is hard? (That’s what she said…) *gives stink eye* What else is hard is trying to work full time, juggling two, full-time schedules, and caring for a toddler who had entered the “why” stage of her sh ort-to-date life span like the f***ing Kool-Aid Man busting through walls. “Why daddy?” “Why mommy?” “Why you go upstairs?” “Why mommy tired?” “Why daddy curled up i...

[EDITOR’S NOTE, i.e. I gotta tell you something before you read further: I wrote this piece a couple months ago. Yeah I know I need to do some catching up. Be patient.] So… this post is a little long, because it’s the first in a new series and I’m a wordy guy and I have thoughts and such. With that said…. Thus begin…   The Ramblings of an Expectant Dad, Part 2 . Hey, you know what? I’ve been at this parenting stuff for over two years now. Sure, the “Terrible Twos” are starting, but you know what? It’s not really that bad. We adjust our parenting style, we’ve read up on some measures we can take to mitigate what our daughter is going through, and we cope. Thankfully I have an incredible partner in my wife to help get us through whatever comes our way! So, of course, this is right about the time my world gets turned ass-side upwards. (Ass-side upwards??) Come on, admit it. It sounds better than saying “turned upside down.” (Okay, we’ll give you that.) The parenthetica...

I’ve always said that one of the cruelest tricks God plays on man is to make our pets’ lifespans shorter than our own. It’s a trick most of us nevertheless fall for time and again, though we know the result will always be the same. For the last seven years it’s a trick I’ve managed to avoid…. Until this morning. And now that the trick’s been played, my heart aches with a wound from which it will take untold time to heal. We all have that one point in our lives when we hit rock bottom. For me it was the Spring of 2013. The details at this point don’t matter. Suffice it to say I found myself a broken man at that time. In so many ways my life was spiraling out of control. Like a whirling dervish with no point of focus, I nearly spun myself to a place from which I genuinely feared I might never return. Now, I may carry God with me wherever I go with two crosses tattooed on my arms, but my faith had begun to waiver long ago. At the time of my life, it had evaporated. Perhaps I n...

Every once in a while a Facebook page to which I subscribe provides "daily writing prompts" to stoke writers' creativity. Today's caught my attention and I thought to myself "why not?" The prompt read thusly:  Write the first page of a story using these words:  Dragon Chicago Accident Sewer Pixies So, naturally, I did. Enjoy and let me know what you think.  *** It had to be the exhaustion. There was no other reason his eyes remained closed. The stench of the storm sewer alone would have caused anyone of a lesser constitution to gag. Notwithstanding, he deservedly slept a deep sleep. He'd been on the run so long, constantly moving. Even if he could find peace of mind long enough to stop and think about it, he'd still not remember the last time he'd had more than two consecutive hours of sleep. It was only the tugging at his pocket that finally stirred him awake. "Hey! Fuck off!" he yelled, his senses roaring to f...

"Am I broken?" she asked. "Do you think you're broken?" "Aren't you supposed to tell me I'm not broken and that I shouldn't ask that question?" "That's not why we're here." *silent pause* "You're the worst therapist ever." "Because I won't placate you to make you feel better? That's not how therapy works." "Then what's the point?" "The point is to understand why you think you're broken in the first place." *another pause* "I think I'm just wired differently." "That I can address; you are wired differently. We all are. Sure, we may all share certain characteristics, but internally we're often very different. We need to be." "I suppose. Sometimes I just feel like I was made for something else." "Like what?" I don't know. Something. Anything else." ...