Dreamed last night that I had ingested poison and while I was waiting for it to take effect, I saw someone had a flat tire outside my house and said “oh no I should go help them”—you guys think that means anything or?

I can tell Joni Mitchell is a great artist because skating away on a nonexistent river wouldn’t crack my like top hundred ways to leave a place where I was unhappy

John Prine rocks because you hear one song and you’re like “well that was the best song ever written” and then you hear another one and you’re like “oh shit”

My wife and I have a real “let’s call the whole thing off” thing going on but instead of “tomato” and “tomahto” I say “I didn’t hear you” and she says “you weren’t listening”

Wicked: For the Beh-heh-heh-ter

Today a kid was practicing reading and she read the word “cool” and I asked her to tell me what it meant and she pointed at me and said “like you’re cool” 😎😎😎😎😎

Pope should do a publishing summit next. Give some of these freaks a talking to

Child: “Mr. Derek, my brother said sorry to me this morning, but he didn’t even do anything!” Me, a recovering Catholic: “I do that sometimes”

Friend just showed his girlfriend both Butch Cassidy AND The Verdict and I’m currently waiting to hear which Paul Newman she thought was hotter

I like when the cold makes my hands all chapped and I can pretend that I’ve worked a day in my life

My wife bought this because she says it looks like me

Parent-teacher conferences go against everything Goodfellas raised me to believe about the importance of not ratting on your friends

Fuck me up, king

Just sighed so big a piece food that was stuck in my teeth dislodged and flew out of my mouth

If you’re in the market for a horror movie essay today, then give yourself a TREAT and read this one I wrote about Weapons! Or just play a TRICK and tell me you read it anyway!

Excellent essay about the movie Weapons (spoilers of course)

If you’re in the market for a horror movie essay today, then give yourself a TREAT and read this one I wrote about Weapons! Or just play a TRICK and tell me you read it anyway!

Today I mentioned that my parents live in Illinois and one of my kids said “Mr. Derek, you’re really brave to come to school all by yourself”

Said it before but a great part of working with kids is how sensitive they are to even the smallest of injuries. I come in with a nick from shaving sometimes and they are all so concerned about me

Bumpin that

I wrote about Weapons and all the stuff it brought up for me about active shooter trainings. Link, as they say, below 👇

Me, misunderstanding “gooner” as “a fan of Jennifer Egan’s 2010 collection of linked short stories ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’”: “I don’t know. I’ve always liked the PowerPoint presentation one”

Do not, my friends, become addicted to sleeping through the night

Really great children’s book I just came across. Could not recommend it enough

The Whale truly a make-up Oscar in more ways than one

Any teachers out there looking to talk about Jane Goodall, this is my preferred text

Reaching the point in the book I’m reading where things haven’t really come together, nothing’s really happened, and there’s less of the book unread than I’ve read already—the “uh-oh point” as we all call it

Got this email and thought I was being put on blast for a second

When I was like eleven I did a psych study where a grad student asked me child development questions and going in I was like “oh what if they find out I’m a genius” and then during it I mixed up right and left

“We must be on our phones less!” Frog said, scrolling on his phone

It remains my contention that whatever you are handed by a Dunkin employee, despite what your may have ordered or what you wanted, it is exactly what you deserve

Been reading a biography of Rose Kennedy and reading about how at her convent school, they had a weekly ceremony where the nuns publicly gave each girl a “very good,” “good,” or “good enough” ranking for their behavior and like damn girl I’m sorry that happened I get it

Probably my biggest fear that I don’t feel things as deeply as other people but I think the solution to that is probably just to be online a lot less

In high school (Catholic) we asked our religion teacher if she could bring in an exorcist for us to just like, talk to, and she came back a few days later and said the Church doesn’t release the names of priests who can perform exorcisms, and I think about this all the time

Don’t believe in “haunted houses” (ghosts). Do believe in “haunted houses” (house is Bad)

Going in I’d just like to state for the record that The Departed is my favorite Leo performance

Just ate an apple cider and am seeing One Battle After Another later. Lapsed Catholic Boy Fall is off to a powerful start

You’re in her dms. I’m singing “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” in front of Ira. We are not the same

There are “This is where Viggo broke his toe people” and “The lady who says I’ll have what she’s having is Rob Reiner’s mother” people

My most firmly held belief that Meg Ryan should have won an Oscar for When Harry Met Sally

Daredevil should have an enemy that represents American Protestantism

Probably the most revealing thing I can admit is that my ideal romantic relationship is Leonard and Virginia Woolf in “The Hours”

I never take rejections that hard. There are tons of factors as to why someone passes on something. Gotta be the right piece for the right market to the right person at the right time. Also sometimes the thing you write just isn’t that good

If you’re concerned about the rapture, may I suggest that possibly it won’t be that bad

Me, turning 34:

I share my birthday with actor Jon Bernthal. We talked this morning, as we always do, and he said that for his birthday, you should read my stuff

Yelling “but dogs can’t play basketball!” while a dog pulls a hood over my head and shoves me into a van

“BECAUSE IT IS MY USERNAME!!! BECAUSE I CAN HAVE NO OTHER!!!”

Me reading a recipe blog: “Ugh just give me the recipe. I don’t need to know your life story” Me writing an essay: “Before I can tell you what I thought of this movie, let me talk about the year I was the most depressed I’ve ever been”