In My Place 299

October 26, 2026. 40.00397, -75.16014. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

I take the 6:55 instead of the 7:23 even though the 7:23 gets me to work on time most of the time because the 7:23 doesn't get me to work on time all of the time. The trains stop randomly all the fucking time and occasionally those stops will be extended. If I'm on the 7:23 and the train stops then all I can think about is how I'm going to be late for work. If I'm on the 6:55 and the train stops then I can sit back and enjoy whatever scenery we're stopped around, knowing that I'll still get to work comfortably before my boss does, because if the 6:55 gets me to work late then that means the whole SEPTA system is so irrevocably fucked that morning that my boss saw it on the news.

We stopped here today, and I thought it was beautiful: the gutted warehouse through a tree at a moonlit dusk. After fifteen minutes, we started to move again, and I used the rest of the train reading about why the moon always looks so small in photos.

In My Place 298

October 25, 2026. 40.07295, -75.06948. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Adventure waiting,

it's right there, beckoning me;

stuck inside the house.

~~~~~~~

Not technically true, but I did feel stuck inside the home, with the partner sick and the dependents being little shits and not wanting to leave and instead wanting to rot away on the couch. All good. Having a Sunday where not a single thing happens can be good sometimes. For example: better than being at work. I'm not complaining.

I also won't be complaining when this blog column is over and I'll lose its constant pull to fill the space bitching about my day.

In My Place 297

October 24, 2026. 40.07676, -75.08082. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

The core idea of trunk-or-treats is a good one—communities coming together to treat children to candy, which they have to go around and collect—but I think there can be some improvements to make such an event even better. First, why cars? It occurs to me now that you could give candy out from anywhere. You could even give candy out from your own home! Maximum convenience for the adults who are trying to get the candy into the kids' hands. Second, why so close together? Kids have boundless energy, let's make 'em work a little more. Let's have them walk house to house! That way it won't be as crowded. If you pack everyone into a closed parking lot, like we usually do, it gets a little claustrophobic, but imagine how fun it would be to spread our across the entire neighborhood! Third, why charge? If we make each house responsible for their own candy to give out, we can just make it a free event for everybody! Walk around your neighborhood if you want, give out candy if you want, let the kids free on the streets to have fun for no charge! Wouldn't that be a great trunk-or-treat? Imagine if we could pull this off? I don't know if it's doable, but I want to try it this year. A trunk-or-treat, but houses instead of cars, and throughout the whole neighborhood instead of one parking lot, and totally free and voluntary. Think anyone would go for it? And what would we name such a thing?

In My Place 296

October 23, 2026. 40.07251, -75.0762. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

It was a bad week, the classic cliché "bad week at work," and here we are at Friday, needing to unwind, and I have very few ways of doing so now. But pizza has stuck with me, and so pizza it is. Too many slices of pizza, on a Friday night, to forget about the week that preceded it.

In My Place 295

October 22, 2026. 40.06329, -75.08642. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

A bizarre, surreal memory of being in like high school and walking down this road, through the construction site that once was, back when they were building that bridge yonder, or rather refurbishing it, the street under it, ya know, all that, and I musta been walking from Burholme to Wawa if I had to guess, or vice versa, and suddenly I run into the dad of one of my grade school friends, he's on the construction crew, we make small talk and then I walk away, and it strikes me now, on this currently drive, as I listen to music that isn't really catching my interest and so my mind is wandering, through this memory and crash into the realization that I am probably the same age now as he was then, which is a realization that must crash down upon everyone eventually, that the adults you see in your mind's eye from long ago are actually younger in that memory than you are, even though you still don't see yourself as an adult, there it is, the evidence, Mr. W. and his wife were probably at least a couple years younger than my mom, which meant that Mr. W. was probably in his mid-30s when he was working third shift trying to complete the underpass on Cottman Ave. at Ryers Station, which my mind can't comprehend and so I file it away till I turn 40.

In My Place 294

October 21, 2026. 39.95297, -75.16567. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Setting of the meeting: repurposed college classroom, one I've been in for way too many boring-ass work meetings and trainings before; I go right to the back, as far back as I can, straight to the corner, far enough away that I'm used for help to figure out whether the speaker needs a microphone (i.e. "can you hear me? joe, can you hear me?").

Kind of surreal, when you think about it—and I do, today, a lot, because this is boring shit and my mind has a way of wandering, latching onto big thoughts, to get through the petty small thoughts that assault me during meetings like this—that I'm sitting here, in the shadow of the ancient building that marks the center and heart of this city, one of the most famous cities in the world. Like, that someone in fucking Omaha or Hamburg or Istanbul can pick up a tourist pamphlet for Philadelphia, U.S.A., and they'll see a picture of this building, and here I am, living my humdrum fucking life right next to the same building. Almost impossible to rectify those two realities. But I tried, because the meeting was boring as fuuuuuuuuck.

(Substance of the meeting: repurposed as fiction, here on this blog, eventually—close readers will recognize it when it arrives, others will be confused and let it pass by and forget about it forever.)

In My Place 293

October 20, 2026. 40.07165, -75.069. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

There's a difference between scared of the real and scared of the unreal. We're scared all the time, we humans, but being smart about it means being able to delineate between the shit you're supposed to be afraid of and the shit that doesn't exist.

A quick analysis in my brain told me that the fear I felt before traversing through the pitch-black woods on this autumn evening would be fear of the unreal. There's a non-zero probability of a real danger, like with a wild animal or something I guess, or tripping and twisting my ankle on a rock, but I don't think that's exacerbated in the dark. No, the dark only exacerbates the unreal fears, like, uh, fear of Candyman poking his bloody hook out from behind a tree. I feel the fear of the unknown, but I have the ability to push that aside, to focus on the known, and to determine that it was all good. Flashlight on, eight-minute shortcut through the woods, no problem.

It was silent in there, completely silent. To be honest, if I yelled as loud as I could, I bet you Pam could have heard me from our house. I'm saying if I twisted my ankle and needed help or something. So that was a comfort too. If Candyman gutted me? Probably wouldn't have time to yell. But that's not real. It's very easy to do something like walk through the woods at night when you don't believe in scary things that aren't real.

In My Place 292

October 19, 2026. 40.08664, -75.04482. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Calling out sick is the thing that discombobulates me the most. Especially when I'm not the one sick, when I have to call out because others need my care. Then it feels like I'm playing hooky. It's actually a tough emotion to get a grip on, that feeling that the world is still turning without you, that people are out there living their lives, still, even as you press pause on yours. I guess this is why people are afraid to die, because they feel like they're going to be missing out on something. A way to combat that would be to try your best to practice the belief that wherever you are, that's where you're supposed to be. Whether it be at home, at work, in the Aldi supermarket, or in hell.

In My Place 291

October 18, 2026. 40.07319, -75.06903. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

There's some sick rot making its way through the heart of America, sweeping through the common people. It's the obsessive need to "do things," to participate in events, no matter how stupid, pointless, painful. Today's FOMO event was a "trick-or-treating" event at the horse stables next door (a location that somehow took 291 days to take a photo at this year). We live next door, and it was free, true, so that put some balm on the wound of waiting 75 minutes for twelve pieces of candy from the animals that we see every day of our lives. There were people that came from out of town for this. There were people waiting two hours for this. I feel sad and I don't know if I can articulate why. Something about how there is an emptiness in our lives and we think we can fill it by gathering in public for the most asinine fucking reasons. There's an Infinite Jest passage about this, I should probably find it and reread it tonight, to soothe my soul from the pain I feel after waiting in this long line and thinking that this is precluding some sort of cataclysmic collapse in our society.

Horses were cute, though.

In My Place 290

October 17, 2026. 39.94924, -75.1489. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

The idea of "map of free bathrooms in the city" is one that floats around everyone's skulls at least once in their lives (I think it made it onto an episode of Seinfeld too, didn't it?). But the idea will never actually be borne out. Free bathrooms are too fickle. The map itself would require community input that is way less easier to obtain once those community members have empty bladders. It's all supposed to just live in your head, anyway. The heads of people who often find themselves in the position of having to pee and not knowing where to go to do so. I decided to pee before driving home from book club and found myself going back into the hotel that was adjacent to (connected to?) the bar we were at, down the plush stairway into a labyrinth of hallways on the basement level, with a free bathroom, right there, available to anyone who wants to walk right in. I filed it away, mentally, but, like, what are the chances that I'll find myself in this area of the city with this full of a bladder ever again? Not impossible, but unlikely. And so the file is shredded and I continue on in a world where bathrooms are elusive and every public pee feels like a quest.

In My Place 289

October 16, 2026. 39.91906, -75.18857. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

this is a haiku

about a junior bacon

cheeseburger, alright

didn't crash car in the rain

didn't crash car in the rain

I didn't take this picture, but I was there. Full credit to the photographer, paid in jr. bacon cheeseburgers.

In My Place 288

October 15, 2026. 39.95333, -75.1665. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Remember when there were big plans to fix up Suburban Station, make it some sort of social hangout hub, with bars and restaurants? I don't think I'm making this up. I'm pretty sure it was deeply in the works before COVID happened and pulled the guts out of basically any plan like this. Some plans made a comeback. Others, like the alleged Suburban Station plan, were permanently buried and forgotten about. I think about it every time I walk into any isolated, desolate space down here. Imagine what this huge fucking space could look like, instead of empty floor and a nuts shop. Imagine if people actually hung out down here, instead of walking quickly through it and escaping as soon as possible.

In My Place 287

October 14, 2026. 40.07296, -75.06945. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

We used to just walk right into the woods like it was nothing. Like we were invincible.

And I guess we were, in retrospect. Nothing fucked with us. Nothing was out to get us. We walked into the woods and that's where we existed, for a few hours, in the dark. Like nothing else existed. And maybe nothing else did.

In My Place 286

October 13, 2026. 40.07308, -75.06953. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Not sure what to tell ya. After a few days of pictures from far-off lands (i.e. 100 miles from my house), we're back to where I always default to after a monotonous day with no interesting Places visited. I leave my house, I get to work, I come home, here I stay. Such a picture requires boring details to color in the margins, like how tall this bush has gotten, how I need to call a roofer to fix that corner of the roof, that kind of thing. Not every day can be full of ferris wheels and fried pickles and Kreeper. Work is going well, I feel nauseous, we started a rewatch of The Sopranos, tomorrow is another fucking day.

In My Place 285

October 12, 2026. 40.6396, -76.19471. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Whenever we drive through a small town, on the way to a smaller town or a bigger town (you know the small towns I'm talking about, the ones with one main road and that road is a tributary of a highway and that road is marked with banners of black-and-white pictures of all the veterans of war that grew up in that town), Pam says something like "I wish we could live in a small town," which is true, and also true that I feel similar feelings, when we drive through small towns. But the reality quickly crashes down by the time we make it through that small town, realities both large and small. How uprooting your life is hard; how we'd have outsider status in that town; how, even if it was a welcoming town, I'd still feel like an outsider; how my making assumptions about people in small towns would be the thing that would mark me as an outsider, ultimately. Thoughts about small towns are tied to more general feelings of escape, which are nice, but ultimately unrealistic. If I had a gun to my head, I'd eventually admit that I don't want to live in a town whose tallest point is a grain elevator.

In My Place 284

October 11, 2026. 40.87913, -76.50323. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

An ode to optimism, to making the best of it. Not the best day at Knoebels Amusement Park. Maybe even the worst? Optimism means accepting the worst and making the best of it.

Family lore: in 2023, probably exactly three years ago, the five of us took a trip to Knoebels. We had a great day, in the rain. It wasn't raining as thickly as it was today, but it was still a wet day. And we had a fucking blast. "Pride" is something that I feel pretty often about my little family unit, but that mostly stems from, like, one or two people, e.g. "we did really well with the kids today," or "she was so brave dealing with that in school," etc. That day at Knoebels 2023 was the first time that I looked at all five of us, together, and was proud at what we had done, and who we were, together.

So I know we can do it. It was almost preferable, this time around. Knoebels 2024 saw sunny, hot weather, and it was a nice time, but the lines were fucking nuts. Yesterday, lines were just as long, though the sun didn't beat down as roughly as it did last time, so that made it doable at worst (terrible lines though, still). Today... I mean, it's been pouring in Elysburg all fucking day. To the point that the rides aren't even open. Impossible to walk around without getting drenched.

And still, optimism. I'm still proud of this crew. We're having a good weekend. It's all good. Making the best of it.

In My Place 283

October 10, 2026. 40.8511, -76.58477. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Thinking about the idea of living "somewhere else." Like, even temporarily. Or stretch the idea even further and say "sleeping somewhere else" (since the idea of "sleeping somewhere" is often attached to "where you live"). There was a time in my life when "sleeping somewhere else" was a regular occurrence. I don't really do that anymore. 99% of my nights spent in my own bed (or, like, one of the kids' beds after I get kicked out of my own because she's "afraid of the dark and wants to sleep with mommy" or whatever, or sometimes on the couch because the kid bed that I'm banished too is hurting my back). That's a symptom of getting older, I know. The other 1% of my nights are vacation nights, like last night, and tonight, here at this bed and breakfast. It's healthy to live somewhere else, even for a weekend. Healthy to get a sense of other ways of life. Healthy to break the routine, step outside yourself. I don't know if I could live in a place like this full time, but it's interesting to think about it, to experience, for just a little bit.

In My Place 282

October 9, 2026. 40.87979, -76.50269. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Totally lame, because I never do this, but I sorta choked up a little bit, watching the two older kids on this ride by themselves, way up high, me standing below looking up, I can't say for certain why I felt that way, it was mostly just a strange chemical reaction within the mysterious human body, just random circumstance, the lights and sounds or something, I don't know, but if I had to ascribe it meaning, it was something about them appearing so... grown up, or something, up there chatting, clearly they are gonna be best friends forever, and they have lives separate from their dad, lives together, inside jokes, that kind of thing, it made me real proud... is proud the word? I guess. I'm just lying here in a bed and breakfast trying to write something on a blog post while these rascals watch Sing 2, I don't even know what I'm saying.

In My Place 281

October 8, 2026. 40.0732, -75.06921. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

she said, "i love that smell"

and i do too

nature v nurture

i don't know why i love it

it's in my bones

she loves it because she is growing up here

it's all she's ever known

it will one day remind her of home

maybe that's the same for me

i smelled it here when we opened the car door

to see the house for the first time

and maybe we live here now

because it smells like home

to me too

In My Place 280

October 7, 2026. 39.95408, -75.16687. See the updated map here. See all the blog posts here.

Something about, I don't know, submerging into the depths of the city, a cement cavern that will take me away to parts unknown, something like that, I really don't know. I'm not a poetry guy. That feels like a task for other people. Choosing the right words carefully to describe a particular feeling. I feel like I can get the same outcome from prose, or maybe I'm just lazy. I keep saying that this is all practice for something, except I don't know what. Practice for the next thing I write, which will be the real thing; this is just practice. It doesn't count. Go read poetry if you want the real stuff. This is just some fake bullshit about the stairs into the concourse into the tunnel for my train home. There's something there, but not here, because I'm still practicing.