Left to my own devices

Yesterday, during a back & forth professional e-mail chain, a business partner wrote: "Congratulations to your daughter on her acceptance to the university!" I stopped for a moment, taken aback at the obviously incorrect statement. Yours truly has never been in a position to father a child, dear reader, and so the laudation was, alas, misdirected. A couple of e-mails later, and all was sorted out. The person had meant to send the remarks to someone else. No harm, no foul. Afterward, I had turned the exchange into a minor story of mirth, regaling a couple of co-workers about it, and even posting it online to social media. Chuckle chuckle, there's no way Matt could have a daughter out there -- or could he? Ha ha, but no. Admittedly, I had a few seconds of slight panic at the thought of an offspring I was unaware of. The alarm was uncalled for, of course, which at the moment made it even more amusing. And then, as the day wore on, a rather surprising sen...

There has been much online (and real life) consternation regarding the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones that just finished airing. Particularly, many felt that the final six episodes felt rushed, and didn't conclude the sprawling plot threads weaved over the years in a very satisfying manner. It's also fair to say that a fair number of fans were quite fine with how things were wrapped-up, and don't really get what all the fuss is about. I suppose it is the hallmark of a mega-popular program that people even care enough to be upset by something that is basically a bunch of people acting on a screen. It is a testament to the creative abilities of all involved with the production that they managed to enthrall so many for such a number of years. So, kudos to Game of Thrones , however controversially it ended its run. It made people care, and that's not something that can be said about everything available to watch on television. What fascinates me abo...

Profuse profanity. Catty remarks. Bad news. Pleasure in others' suffering. Near-constant outrage. In-case-you-didn't-know posts about depressing situations, sometimes accompanied by terse, negative commentary. These things are often commonplace on social media (I'm an old man, so for me that means Facebook and Twitter). Accessing social media sometimes requires taking a deep breath, bracing oneself for whatever gloomy, pessimistic entries one may find from others. Then, as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed one day last summer, my left wrist buzzed. Thinking it was a notification of a text or e-mail, I glanced at it only to find the following message: "Your Apple Watch has detected a heartbeat above 120 BPM while you were resting." It recommended keeping an eye on it, or seeking attention if necessary. And I was, indeed, resting, sitting lazily on the couch on a comfortable summer day. That was the deciding moment. I'd been contempla...

There was once a friend who told me he loved me. He said it very matter-of-fact, though there was some unease within his person about it. We sat there, on the bleachers at high school, blowing-off P.E. class one slightly overcast day, and we were talking, just shooting the breeze. There was a lot of subtext to our conversation, though I wasn't really analyzing it at the time. I was expending a lot of energy talking bitterly about being friendless, and how I didn't really fit in anywhere. There was a nasty undercurrent to my words that I wasn't aware of.

I'd heard of the suicide, of course. Nearly everyone locally, who paid attention to the news, or was on social media, had heard of the death. I didn't know the man who died, though knew several people who did. Folks seemed in a state of shock. He'd had his demons, yes, but, as is so often the case, very few suspected that suicide would be the ultimate outcome of his mental and emotional travails. He was young, somewhere in his twenties, I think. Yet another life gone too soon. It was maybe a month or so later when I was contacted privately, online, via social media messenger, from the young man abroad. We'd never met and, honestly, I don't remember how we came to connect online. He was cute, certainly, and foreign. He'd spent some time in my town awhile back, then moved back home. We said the occasional 'Hello' to one another on social media, but that had been about the extent of our communication. Then one day, there was the message from him...

SPOILERS FOLLOW FOR AVENGERS: ENDGAME A vengers: Endgame , the latest blockbuster entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debuted last  week to  positive reviews and a stellar box office take. It will likely have another great weekend, and many people I know have seen it more than once. More than just a movie, Endgame is a fairly well-done wrap-up to the first eleven years of the MCU. Personally, I think it's a great bit of fan service, but a somewhat uneven, muddled film (you can hear my expanded thoughts, and those of others, here ). Perhaps my favorite aspect of Avengers: Endgame was how it treats male heterosexuality. Before we get into that, however, it's worth mentioning that the movie -- the 22nd overall in the MCU -- featured its first openly gay character , portrayed by co-director Joe Russo. It was a touching moment, though brief. My reaction to it is in stark contrast to what I normally think of such moments. For the most part, I understand t...