Jeff’s Silly Little Blog

My grandpa, “Papa”, died a few months ago. October 17th, to be exact. At the time, I was so caught up in my own shit that I didn’t get to say goodbye, or didn’t even really try to. So this is me trying to.

Papa — Wendell Reuben Doolittle III. What a name, right? My dad could’ve been the fourth, and I could’ve been the fifth, but alas, it was not to be (and I’m okay with that). I don’t know much about Wendells I and II, or much about Papa’s upbringing at all, other than he grew up on the south side of Chicago.

Out of the five people I call grandparents (dad’s mom and dad; mom’s mom, dad, and stepdad), Papa was the one I was closest with. Not that it’s a competition. That’s just how it was.

Some of my earliest memories include Papa. My sisters and cousins and I would spend nights at Papa’s house and watch movies, during which Papa would inevitably fall asleep. Whenever one of us would notice, we’d laugh and tell him to wake up, and he’d laugh and claim he was “just resting his eyes” or “long blinking”, and we’d laugh even more.

Papa used to take us to the pool at Black Bob Park. I was 3 or 4 at the time and didn’t know how to swim, but I loved going down the water slides, so he would wait at the bottom and catch me. I remember he was a really good swimmer. He was one of the few adults who wasn’t too grown up to go off the diving board — always the same standard dive, but remarkably graceful for a man approaching 70.

The first time I spent more than a night or two away from my parents was during the summer when I was eight, in Stuart, Nebraska, with Nana and Papa. Apparently, my parents had trusted me to pack my own bag for the week. When I got to Stuart, Papa discovered I had packed only toys. I thought this was a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I don’t remember if Papa was amused, or upset, or a little bit of both; regardless, we drove to ALCO in O’Neill and he bought me a week’s worth of clothes and a toothbrush and whatnot. I remember that being an exceptionally fun week. We went to the demo derby and stock car races, and I’m realizing as I’m typing this that Papa may have planted the seed for my love of motorsport. We played lots of catch in the backyard — I did remember to pack my ball glove — and I had to be extra accurate, because he wasn’t quite as agile as my dad or my friends, and I’d have to chase down my bad throws. Dinners were all homemade, either by Nana in the kitchen or Papa on the grill, and always followed by dessert. I think we got ice cream every night that week.

Papa had quite the sweet tooth, which I inherited. I remember going through the Dairy Queen drive thru with him and asking for a Georgia Mud Fudge blizzard, which he relayed to the cashier as “Georgia mudbank,” then “Georgia on my mind.” I think eventually he got it right. He always had sweets in the fridge (or “icebox,” as he called it), his favorites being those skinny rectangular vanilla wafer cookies, which actually aren’t good at all and have roughly the same consistency as vanilla-flavored styrofoam. But when I was a kid, they were a delicacy, and I knew them by one name: Papa Cookies.

Of all the lessons I learned from Papa, the ones I’m most grateful for are the ones he taught me on the golf course. It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say he taught me how to hit a golf ball — most of that credit goes to my mom’s stepdad, “Pop-pop,” who cut some old clubs down to my size when I was 10 or 11 and provided me with endless balls to hit into their Texas pasture — but Papa taught me everything else about the game. He followed the rulebook to the letter, and he demanded I do the same. “Mulligans” and “gimmes” were out of the question. He taught me the unwritten rules as well — when to be quiet, where to park the cart, where you can and can’t walk on the green, where to place your ball marker. All the things that, according to him, separate a casual player from a real golfer. He was a bit of an elitist in that way and, for better or worse, I got that from him as well. Don’t step in my line, please. And can you turn your music down? This is a golf course, not a Morgan Wallen concert.

When I was 15, the summer before my junior year of high school, Papa loaned me $1500 for my first car, a 1999 Ford Contour. The car was a piece of junk, and I sold it the next summer for a fraction of what I paid for it, but it was a car. When I first asked him for the loan, he hemmed and hawed and said he’d have to talk it over with Nana. He could be a bit of a stickler like that at times, but other times he was incredibly generous. I paid him back in $20 installments by mowing his lawn those two summers, and he kept a detailed handwritten ledger of the loan balance, but I’m pretty sure he fudged the numbers, because there’s no way I mowed his lawn 75 times.

Papa loved sports, especially baseball. He and my dad and I made plenty of trips to The K to see the Royals play his beloved White Sox. I remember one game in particular: a hot Sunday afternoon in 2013, with the Royals floating around .500 and the White Sox having a down year. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the Royals trailing 2-0, Lorenzo Cain came to the plate and hit a two-run bomb to left-center field — exactly where we were sitting. The ball bounced off of a metal guardrail and back onto the field, otherwise it may have caromed into one of our laps.

That’s the three of us in the middle. My dad and I were ecstatic; Papa was less so. The Royals would go on to win in extra innings, and would finish the season with their first winning record in a decade. Lorenzo Cain became my all-time favorite Royal that day, a title he has yet to relinquish. The White Sox would go on to finish dead last in the division, but if I had to guess, Papa watched every pitch.

Every so often when I was in college, Papa would drive to Lawrence to take me to lunch. We always went to the same place: Jefferson’s on Mass Street. He could never remember his order, so I remembered it for him: ten traditional wings, no sauce, ranch, celery, fries, and plenty of wet naps. He always asked how my classes were going, how my car was running, if I was dating anyone. And he’d tell the same handful of stories from when he was in college — my favorite was the one about the road trip from Champaign to Pasadena to see his Fighting Illini play in the Rose Bowl. I loved those lunch dates, and he loved coming to Lawrence — “lots of pretty gals,” he would say.

Papa had many wonderful qualities, but he was far from perfect. Call him a product of his generation, I suppose, because that’s a hell of a lot kinder than the truth.

He was not particularly respectful of women, to put it mildly. Every waitress was “tutz” and would likely get a far-too-casual squeeze of her hand or touch of the small of her back. I heard stories of his hands wandering further when he was in nursing homes during his last few years, and from before that, when he was still of sound mind. He had a younger sister, Mary Lou, whom I didn’t even know existed until she died. He didn’t go to her funeral. I have a few good memories of my grandmother, Nana, but mostly I remember her being tired or ill. It wasn’t until I got older that I learned she was heavily medicated for psychiatric issues. It’s not my place to speculate on the origins of those issues, but suffice to say, I don’t think theirs was a very healthy marriage.

His three granddaughters — my sisters, Kelli and Katie, and my cousin, Lauren — received far less attention from him than my cousin Nick and myself. Maybe he didn’t know how to relate to them, or maybe he just didn’t try, but I know it bothered them, and it bothers me. I wish he had treated them the way he treated me, so that they could see him the way I see him — funny, generous, wise, loving. Despite his flaws, those are the things I will remember about him. He was a good grandfather to me.

Today would’ve been Papa’s 93rd birthday. I guess he decided to go out before the lyrics to “The Christmas Song” no longer applied to him (Frank Sinatra’s version, of course; Papa was a sucker for “Old Blue Eyes”). His birthday, my dad’s, and mine all fall within a week of each other: mine on the 8th, my dad’s on the 12th, Papa’s on the 15th. Perhaps for efficiency’s sake, the three of us would celebrate our birthdays together, and my mom would decorate the cake with candles representing our combined ages. Here’s a picture from a few years ago, before his health really began to deteriorate:

I’ll miss doing that.

A brief follow-up on my last post. A handful of people have reached out since then, sharing similar struggles with mental health, personal loss, career frustration, and so on. One friend in particular — if you’re reading this, you know who you are — shared at length with me some of the unimaginable struggles that he and his wife faced over the last few years, and how isolated he felt during that time. It was really humbling, and it was an important reminder of a few things:

1. Everyone is fighting their own battles. It’s the most cliche bullshit, I know, but it’s not bullshit.
2. Some battles are more intense than others. I often find myself comparing my problems with those of the people around me and telling myself I don’t have it so bad. Which is absolutely true! All things considered, I’m really blessed. I’m in good health (for the most part), I’m surrounded by loving friends and family, I have a roof over my head and a warm place to sleep at night, I’ve never had to worry about my next meal, and I enjoy endless creature comforts that so many people go without. For fuck’s sake, I’m sitting here in my recliner, sipping a beer and blogging on a Wednesday night, with My Sweet Beautiful Perfect Pearl curled up over there on the couch. How bad can it really be?

But it does get bad sometimes, or maybe it’s during those bad times that I lose sight of the good stuff. Whatever the case, when the bad seems to outweigh the good,

3. Talk about it. Get it all out there. Maybe start a blog!

Maybe don’t start a blog. I’m still on the fence about it. But for real — lean on the people around you. I’m lucky enough to have a lot of great people in my corner, and I recognize that’s not the case for everyone. But if you’re reading this and you’re struggling with something, no matter how small you think it is, please reach out. DM me (or text or whatever). I say that with the caveat that I’m pretty shit at giving actual life advice, but I’m an okay listener, and I promise just getting that stuff off your chest will feel good. I made one post and now I have some deeper friendships because of it.

There’s my “brief” follow-up. Now for some fresh content.

WordPress.com’s prompt for today’s blog post is “what are your favorite sports to watch and play?” That’s a real thought provoker, but I think I can handle it. Watch: basketball. Play: golf. Okay, now that I got that off my chest, on to the real topic.

I should probably give a disclaimer. If you support Donald Trump, you may not want to hear what I have to say. If you want to scoff and roll your eyes and close this tab and unfriend/unfollow me, do what you gotta do. But if you decide to keep reading, just understand that I’m not attacking you, nor do I hate you. I may hate the person you voted for (and believe me, I do), but I hope that you’re able to separate your identity from his. It’s the people who can’t that I take issue with, but I imagine they aren’t reading this anyway, so fuck ‘em.

But that sucks, doesn’t it? I want to be more understanding. I want someone to make a convincing case for why I have it all wrong, and why Donald Trump is a decent human being and a good leader, and why I shouldn’t assume everyone who supports him is either willfully ignorant, or downright evil, or both. I would love nothing more than to look back four years from now and laugh at how much I was overreacting. Someone make the case for me, because that would be so much easier than being left to grapple with whatever the fuck this is.

It’s the confusion that hits the hardest, I think. It’s difficult to comprehend how a convicted felon (34 times over), self-confessed sexual assailant (God knows how many times over), serial adulterer, pathological liar, who directly or indirectly orchestrated a violent insurrection on the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn the result of a democratic election (and has since pardoned those who took part in it), who openly expresses admiration for foreign dictators, who openly embraces fascist ideas himself, who ran a campaign fueled on fear-mongering and hate toward immigrants and the LGBT community, and who, in just nine days in office, has already begun dismantling the U.S. Constitution and consolidating power to himself, just like he promised he would… I mean, what am I missing here? How did he convince 77 million people to vote for him?

What’s really crazy is I feel like that’s just scratching the surface of how awful he is. When you start to fully realize how much he’s gotten away with — his name plastered all over the Epstein island flight logs, the Bibles he sold with his name on the cover, the whole classified documents thing, the way he handled COVID, the way he responded to the BLM movement and the murder of George Floyd, all the abominable shit he did prior to getting elected the first time — it makes me actually sick to my stomach. I really do try to see the good in people, and I just can’t find a single redeeming quality about him. He’s as bad as it gets. And he’s our Commander in Chief? That fucking guy? How am I supposed to feel? How is anyone supposed to feel when the man occupying the highest office of the most powerful nation in the world can do whatever he wants and get away with it? How is that a good thing?

So there’s plenty of confusion, yes, but also disgust, anger, dread, fear.

Fear, in particular, is a powerful one. About a year ago, I started telling myself (and some friends and family members) I would leave the country if Trump got re-elected. I don’t know if I meant it. Maybe I did, and maybe I will. I was scared then and I’m scared now. It’s such a helpless feeling, seeing people I care about get sucked into this cult. It’s even more helpless seeing marginalized groups of people have their fundamental rights stripped away by the very institutions that are supposed to protect them. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people, right? Why doesn’t that apply to immigrants, or transgender people, or people of color, or impoverished people? Who’s protecting their rights? And how long before any opposition is silenced? Am I putting myself in danger by speaking out against him?

Maybe that’s far too self-important. After all, my blog has a total of six subscribers. I’d like to believe my freedom of speech will remain intact for the next four years, if four years is all it ends up being. But I don’t think either of those things is guaranteed.

Perhaps the scariest part is how quickly it’s all happening. It’s been nine days. Nine fucking days, and already birthright citizenship is at risk. Immigrants are being loaded onto military aircraft and dropped off thousands of miles away. Non-binary people are being told they don’t exist. Social media algorithms are being pumped full of alt-right content. Swarms of government drones are being released into U.S. airspace for “research” purposes (seriously, look it up. Or, depending on where you live, just look up). I’m sure I’m missing a hundred other things, and that seems to be the point — it’s too much to keep track of. I’m reminded of a quote from Andor: “The pace of repression outstrips our ability to understand it. […] It’s easier to hide behind 40 atrocities than a single incident.”

(Listen, I don’t care if you’re a Star Wars fan or not, if you haven’t seen Andor, and you’re reading this and find yourself agreeing with me, please, do yourself a favor and go watch it right now. I promise it’ll stir up something inside of you.)

Another quote from the same show:

”There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. […] Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. […] The need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.”

Here’s what I know. There’s a lot of bad in the world, and from a big picture standpoint, right now feels about as bad as I can remember. But when I zoom in a little bit, I see so much good as well. There are a lot of good people in the world, and a lot of good people in this country. I know this because I’m surrounded by them. I see them every day — my family, my friends, my coworkers, my patients, my neighbors. People at the dog park, at the gym, at the bar, at the grocery store, in my social media spheres. Everywhere.

A few weeks ago, a group of four complete strangers spent more than two hours in the freezing cold to help me pull my car out of the snow, because I’m an idiot and tried to drive a Hyundai Elantra on an unplowed road, a day after the biggest blizzard we’ve had in decades. This was in Manhattan, Kansas. Statistically speaking, two or three of those people voted for Donald Trump. Maybe none of them did. Maybe all of them did. It matters, but it also doesn’t matter, because they’re good people. Yes, my KU friends, there are even good people in Manhattan.

So yes, I’m confused, I’m sad, I’m angry, and I’m afraid. But I’m also hopeful. I’m hopeful that at some point, the good people who support that bad person will come to their senses. The election was a gut punch, no doubt about that, but not a death blow. Trump may have gotten more votes than Harris, but I think there are more good people than bad in this country. Maybe some of them just need a reminder of that. I think it’s up to us — those of us who see that motherfucker for who he really is — to make it happen. Don’t be silent.

Here’s what else I know. The people in power are doing everything they can to distract us, divide us, and discourage us. “Tyranny requires constant effort.” They control what we see in the news and in our social media feeds. They want us fearful and mistrustful and angry at each other so that we turn a blind eye to them. It’s textbook authoritarianism, and it’s effective. How do you overcome that?

I don’t have much actionable advice, but I do have this. Stay aware of what’s going on. Find a news source that you trust (I prefer NPR and the Associated Press) and spend some time each day educating yourself. Allow yourself to react to what you see. Be upset, be angry, be sad; don’t become numb to those feelings. Post it to your instagram story, or whatever you need to do. But don’t let it consume you. Tune in, gather the information you need, and tune out. For me, that means setting screentime limits on social media apps, and actually sticking to them (not to brag). It’s not easy, but it’s 100% necessary for my own sanity.

There may come a time when it does become all-consuming and impossible to tune out. Some people may feel like that time is already here, and I can’t really argue with that. But for me (and I realize this comes from a place of immense privilege as a straight, white, middle-class male), there’s still life to be lived. There are still places to visit, and friends to laugh with, and football games to watch, and mountains to ski down (I’m going skiing next month and I’m fucking pumped — just needed to tell everyone that). That orange clown can’t take those things away from us. At least not yet.

Seek out the things that bring you joy, and find ways to speak and act against the things that bring you grief. Take some sort of stand, no matter how small it feels, and lean on the people around you. Don’t be afraid to get political, because it’s not “just politics” anymore, is it? Start conversations with people who may not see things the same way as you. If you truly care about them, and they truly care about you, you may find that they’re receptive to it.

I suspect things will get worse, perhaps much worse, before they get better. That’s how these things tend to go. I don’t think the fear is going away anytime soon, nor is the confusion or anger. But if that’s all I’m feeling, then those fascist dipshits have already won. So I’m choosing to leave some room for hope.

Well, here goes nothing: I’m starting a blog. I even paid for a domain and everything, so if this flops, I’m out $48. The word “blog” feels a little mid-2000s-y to me, but you know what? The mid-2000s weren’t such a bad time. They were pretty cool, actually. Let’s bring back baggy basketball shorts and flip phones and Linkin Park and Judd Apatow comedies. And blogs.

The truth is, I’ve felt the need for some sort of creative outlet for a while, and I’m not cool enough for TikTok and not photogenic (videogenic?) enough for a YouTube channel. So this will have to do.

I’ve put a fair amount of thought into what I want this to be, and I’ve concluded that I have no idea. I imagine some posts will essentially be journal entries. To that end, I haven’t decided how vulnerable I want to be, or how many family members I want to offend with what they will consider to be foul language. Mom, if you’re reading this, I am sorry to say that yes, I do occasionally use “the f-word.” In fact, I’ve used it for quite some time. I think I lost my “fuck” virginity in 7th grade when Chase Dyle punched me in the stomach, and I haven’t looked back. I know you think it’s a word for people with limited vocabularies, but it felt good to say it then and it feels good to say it now.

A side note: I remember learning about “code switching” in a psychology class in college — how people change their behavior, including the language they use, in different social situations — and it got me thinking. As far as I know, I’ve somehow managed to not drop a single f-bomb around my parents since that fateful day in the Ottawa Middle School lunchroom. I guess I’m pretty fucking good at code switching. Sorry.

Anyway, from a structural standpoint, I expect most of my posts will be more or less like how this one has started, which is to say definitely disjointed, probably a little narcissistic, but hopefully at least somewhat entertaining. Otherwise, what’s the point? I have a lot on my mind, god dammit, and the people deserve to hear about it!

If I work up enough courage, I might also try my hand at fictional writing. I recently read Stephen King’s On Writing —  a collection of memoirs on how he got his start as a writer, followed by a rough blueprint of his fiction writing process. In many ways, that book was the push I needed to start this blog, and I highly recommend it to anyone reading this. But man, fiction is a whole different beast. Where do you even start? How do you get an idea for something like It or The Green Mile and just run with it? I’m not Stephen King (clearly) so if I ever do take a crack at fiction, I imagine it will be pretty bad. Gotta start somewhere though, right?

This was meant to be a “year in review” post, so perhaps I should start reviewing the year I’ve just had. January of 2024 would be a good place to start.

Actually, it’s not. January was pretty shitty for me. February and March were, too. It’s difficult to fully reflect on that time, because I can honestly say it was the lowest point I’ve ever reached from a mental health standpoint. So not only is it hard to talk about, but it’s hard to remember — so much of it just blurs together. I vaguely remember the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl, and I vividly remember getting a tooth pulled and the awful weeks of recovery that followed. Other than that, my memory is mostly static.

I’ve struggled with depression for a long time — probably since college. I’ve had my fair share of highs and lows over the years, but last winter was the first time I felt it really start to consume me. It’s obviously uncomfortable to talk about, so my solution was to not talk about it. I self-isolated, self-medicated (my “prescriptions” were ethyl alcohol and cannabis, to use the medical terms), and generally stopped giving a shit. Turns out that wasn’t the best way of dealing with it. I had my first panic attack sometime in December of 2023, and several more in the months that followed. I was barely sleeping, which made it impossible to function at work, so I started calling in “sick” on a far too regular basis. This created more anxiety because I knew my boss and coworkers weren’t buying it, and it created guilt because, despite how little I enjoy my job even on a good day, I do care about my patients, and their treatment was suffering as a result of my mental health. In short, I was going through it. So I decided to make a change.

On March 20th — the first day of spring, coincidentally — I took another one of those “sick” days and scheduled a meeting with my boss. For some context, my boss is awesome. Genuinely the coolest and nicest person. I wasn’t sure how the meeting would go, but I knew I needed to be transparent with her, because I could tell she was getting frustrated with my work attendance. I told her what I was going through, how and why it was affecting my job performance, and ultimately why I needed to leave my full-time PT position. I cried quite a bit which, let me tell you, being a 28 year old male crying in front of your 60-something female boss, that’s a humbling experience. But it needed to happen, and I’m glad it happened. And my boss, being who she is, was incredibly kind and supportive, and we worked out a way for me to reduce my workload while I figured out my next steps.

That was March. Here we are in January, and I still haven’t figured out those next steps. If you talked to me back then, I would’ve told you I was planning on going to flight school and becoming a pilot. That plan never quite got off the ground (pun intended) (there are so many flight-related puns, it’s ridiculous). Turns out it’s quite a long and expensive process to get a commercial pilot’s license, and I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but everything else is expensive these days (thanks, Obama), and I can’t very well afford to go back to school full time and toss a bunch more money onto the pile of student loans I already have.

For the record, I still do want to be a pilot. It’s an idea that actually excites me. But it’s sitting on the tarmac for now (I’m telling you, I could do this all day). Currently I’m continuing to work two part-time PT positions and dipping my toe into the sales world (as a rep for an orthopedic device company), which is a little scary and a lot different from being a PT. Truthfully, I don’t see myself working in sales long term, but if it helps pay the bills for now, I’ll take it.

So far I’ve talked about my struggles with mental health and career uncertainty — super fun year in review post, I know. How about a few highlights?

In April, I went to New Orleans for a friend’s bachelor party. It was the most fun weekend I’ve had in a long time. It was an awesome group of guys, the weather was perfect, we happened to be there for a big live music festival, we won some money playing craps, we got to see LeBron James play basketball in person (born too late to explore the Earth, etc etc) … my friends and I perhaps overuse the phrase “immaculate vibes” when we all get together, but I can’t think of a more fitting way to sum up that trip.

In October, I went to Austin, Texas to see my first Formula 1 race in person. If you know me, you know that F1 has become my recent obsession, partly because of Netflix’s Drive to Survive dramamentary, and partly because of how handsome and loveable Lando Norris is. The race was a bit of a bummer, with Lando getting a questionable penalty that dropped him from 3rd to 4th (fuck you, Max Verstappen), and I didn’t have the best view of the track, but it was a super fun experience nonetheless and I’m already looking forward to the next race I get to go to (Montreal in June? (eyeballs emoji)). Is there a career that involves going to all of the F1 races as a fan? Perhaps I could be an entrepreneur in this area. If anyone wants to be an angel investor in this very exciting business venture, let me know.

I don’t know if the two events are related, but the day after I got back from Austin, I adopted Pearl. I really can’t say what led me to do it. I’d been browsing some animal shelter websites for a few weeks before that, in a very non-committal way. But I was off work that day, and her picture on the website showed off her beautiful eyes, so I decided to drive to Ottawa and see for myself. The sappy part of me would say she called out to me, but truthfully, the decision to take her home was mostly made on a whim. I had always told myself whenever I got a dog, it would be small, low energy, and wouldn’t shed. Pearl checks zero of those boxes. But she grew on me very quickly, and I can confidently say adopting her was one of the best decisions I made in 2024. There have been some tough moments — just ask my brother in law’s cat, Frank, or my parents’ cat, Micah — but the good outweighs the bad, and taking care of her has taught me a lot about myself. Funny how pets can do that.

A couple of other things that I plan to expand on in future posts, but bear mentioning as part of a year in review:

My grandfather (“Papa”) passed away in October, after a steady decline in health for the last five or so years. It was hard to see him deteriorate, and even harder to see the toll it took on my dad, who was his primary caretaker. Father-son relationships can be complicated, but my dad was undoubtedly a good son.

That fucking election. Yeah, I’ll have a lot to write on that topic, and on how things unfold in the next weeks and months. If you’re a Trump supporter, I imagine you won’t want to read those posts.

There is so much more I want to write about. Maybe trying to condense 366 days (shoutout leap years) into a single blog post was a bit ambitious, but the cool thing is, I can always write more posts, and I plan to.

2024 was an up and down year, but what I can definitively say is I learned more about myself than perhaps any year prior. There’s a lot that still doesn’t make sense to me, and I suspect it’ll always be that way, but maybe this silly little blog (hey, that’s a good name, I think I’ll keep it) will help me make some sense of it. And if I’m really lucky, maybe it’ll help someone else make some sense of stuff as well. Otherwise, what’s the point?