Fatherhood

I Like Proving People Wrong: The Women Who Picked Up the Drill
Jasmine Gurney stands in front of a fence with an orange-and-black power tool in her hand. She is eight months pregnant. On Instagram, she has posted about jobs that would tire most people. She has torn out partition walls, replaced floors, built a fence, insulated and boarded a loft, built a garden studio, made cabinets, moved sockets, and built her son’s first bed. She is building him a treehouse. Before the baby arrives, she is finishing a custom wardrobe.
By Jin3 days ago in Men
Plate Carriers Are Now Memes
Plate carriers are now memes. Devoid of all meaning and practicality, they have become nothing more than a symbol. A symbol of what, though? Protection? Rarely. Most often in the modern world, we see them being ill-fitting, worn incorrectly, of low quality, and often with foam plates or no plates at all (anyone who has had to wear one or fit someone for a plate carrier can tell)—and being worn in contexts that rarely serve their intended purpose. They are more often than not used as an intimidation tactic by those who can no longer own firearms.
By Atomic Historian6 days ago in Men
Mark Consuelos was once voted sexiest male talk show host in the People magazine sexiest man issue
In recent years like last year People Magazine did their annual Sexiest Man Alive issue. One of the categories was sexiest male talk show host. Mark Consuelos was a nominee from the morning talk show “Live With Kelly and Mark” I voted for him. I voted for him and he had won that honor.
By Revista Miko:XCI 11 days ago in Men
The Last Two Cards
At three o'clock last Friday afternoon, when the market closed, Lao Zhang from the IT department leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath. On his screen, red and green daily K-lines crisscrossed; three of his watchlist stocks were in the red, two in the green. He minimized the window, and an unfinished weekly report popped back onto his desktop. At the same moment, Director Li from the sales department updated his WeChat Moments with a photo: a fishing rod slanted in its holder against green hills and clear water, a float standing upright on the surface, captioned "Waiting for good news." Someone commented below, "Any bites?" He replied with a single character: "Wait."
By Jinabout a month ago in Men
Before John, There Was Wolf
I If a learned ancient Chinese scholar, well versed in the art of naming taboos , had walked into a Merovingian Frankish market in the year 600, he would have found the barbarians' names rather agreeable.
By Jin2 months ago in Men
Men who fulfill
Dad was born in Maine in January 1933. He was the second child and son born to his parents, though his older brother died at a very young age. A sister and another brother were born in subsequent years, and they were raised together by God-fearing parents in southern Maine. Grandpa was a carpenter. Dad learned many skills from him. Gram taught briefly. She was frugal, but not cheap. During the Great Depression and World War II years when sugar, eggs, and other staples were rationed, Gram celebrated her children's half-birthdays as an excuse to bake cakes for them, since sweets were rare luxuries. Dad fondly remembered his mother's justification for that tradition.
By Mack D. Ames2 months ago in Men
Small Victories
Some people write thoughtful, planned prose. Others express themselves through poetry that flows from deeply intellectual ponderings. Then there are writers like me. “Stream of Consciousness” is too gentle for my style. “Raging River Rantings” is more accurate. It is not that I write angrily, but that as a violent river flows unpredictably, so also my thoughts move to and fro in seemingly disconnected ways. They link but occasionally splash bystanders in the process.
By Mack D. Ames2 months ago in Men
Ounce A Pawn A Thyme
I can't recall how I found Vocal Media. When I did, the stars shone brightly in my eyes. Dreams of won challenges danced in my head. Cha-ching, cha-ching was the song they sang. Then I wrote my first piece, crashed to earth, oh dang. Tried again, burned up. Once more. Gave up. Glassy-eyed, I knew I'd never crack the top two, so what would I or should I or could I do?
By Mack D. Ames3 months ago in Men
Story Narrative Is Betting the Farm on Audio-First Fantasy. The Math Is Tighter Than Fans Think.
Jack flipped his phone over and set it face down on the kitchen counter. The marble was cold. The phone case tapped the stone with a small, crisp sound. He twisted open a bottle of beer, and the fizz seemed too loud in the empty apartment.
By Jin3 months ago in Men
I Knew Him for Ten Years. Then I Asked for One Tiny Favor.
I had a friend named David. I'd known him for almost ten years. Last year I helped him out with something—not huge, but not nothing either. It took a fair amount of my time. Afterwards, he was extremely grateful, said he'd absolutely take me out to dinner one of these days. I didn't think much of it. We were friends, after all. Then I hit a snag myself, and I reached out to ask him for a very small favor—truly tiny, the kind of thing he could have done with barely a lift of a finger. On the phone, there was this two-second silence. And then he started telling me how swamped he was lately, how inconvenient this would be, and all the complications that might follow if he helped me out. I hung up and just sat there. The feeling was strange. Not anger. Something cold. Something that suddenly saw clearly. I realized that for ten years, I had been the one flowing toward him, and he had never once flowed toward me. I'd simply never asked, so I'd never seen it.
By Jin3 months ago in Men
The Desk Next to the Restroom: What Goldman Sachs Taught Me About Power
The first time Jack Morrison walked into the lobby at Goldman Sachs, the second hand on his pocket watch had just ticked past nine. He thought he was early. But the coffee machine on the trading floor had already cycled through three rounds, and all six desks by the windows were occupied—by people who had nailed down their spots through summer internships while he was still pulling all-nighters in business school building valuation models.
By Jin3 months ago in Men
The Biscotti on the Desk: Why Old-School Loyalty Still Outruns Supply-Chain Algorithms
Arthur Whitman set the receiver back on the cradle and let his fingers rest on the edge of the desk for two seconds. Outside the window, Ohio snow was falling on the corrugated iron roof of the stamping shop, a fine, steady hiss like sandpaper on metal. He was seventy-three years old. He could tell the rhythm on the Krauss 315-ton press was slightly off: every ninth stroke, the return lagged by maybe three-tenths of a second. It was a good machine. Shipped from Stuttgart in 1987, older than his son.
By Jin3 months ago in Men