I started failing at cooking as a teenager.

Some failures were spectacular: baking brownies on a cookie sheet (could stop bullets), using handfuls of jerk seasoning instead of tablespoons (leads to tongue PTSD), even trying to prep pork in the blender with rosemary and vanilla because I liked how it smelled together. (Please don’t ever do this.)

I was reckless.
I was unhinged.
I learned that rosemary and vanilla do not go with each other... or pork, for that matter.

But each failure was a discovery of what didn’t work.
Each failure was the price I had to pay to maybe do things a little differently, to discover what did.

Every time I went out to eat, I paid attention to what real chefs did with their ingredients.
Then, like a mad scientist, I’d experiment when I got home.
It became... fun.

Now? I specialize in Italian, Indian, and Asian cuisine. Maybe not the higher-level stuff.
But my lasagna is to die for, my curries are divine, and don’t make me take out my wok!

There’s a joy that comes from making pancakes from scratch (surprisingly easy, believe it or not. You really don’t need Bisquick) and seeing your girlfriend’s eyes light up when you get crazy with the French toast.

On the flip side of that joy is the curse.
The thing that few people think about.

When your sweet tooth hits at 3 a.m. demanding satisfaction?

Let’s just say the smallest recipe I have for cookies makes four dozen.
My cobblers are surprisingly versatile.
Bread pudding is not that difficult to make.
Compotes, caramels, and toffees, just gotta keep the heat under control.

Thank God I’m still figuring out how to work with yeast.
Fresh-baked bread would be my undoing, and cinnamon rolls...

It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make, though.
For science!

When you know your way around the kitchen, you’re never truly out of options to ruin your diet.

–KC

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I always loved horror movies. Several lifetimes ago my babysitter, against my mother’s wishes would selectively “forget” to adjust her TV watching habits while my single digited self was around. I was subjected to the canonical cast of characters, your Freddie Kruegers, Friday the 13th, and Exorcist flavored fare very early on. I don’t think I was particularly damaged by it (Not really, anyway) but to say that I wasn’t affected by it would be disingenuous.

Early on this would manifest as a darker sense of humor, a greater tolerance for distress, and likely, oddly, contributed to a higher threshold for delayed gratification. Who can say, truly? But later I think, regular desensitization regimen began to bear fruit. At the scholastic book fairs I purchased those “Scary Stories” books, culminating in discovering H.P. Lovecraft, and delving deep into that particular love affair with obviously dubious results.

I began to not just consume horror content for the “Screaming meemies” but also for a bit of insight into the nature of the mind that created the story in the first place. Wondering what thought patterns led to the twisted scares of Event Horizon, or what cultural differences led to Japanese/Korean horror to be so comfortable with leaving things not only unresolved, but even allowing the creeping doom to win? Djinn, Raksasha, Wendigo, Oni, Efreet, all arrive on the screen carrying thousands of years of history and folklore, and through a simple horror movie, we get a companion class in anthropology for free.

My current taste veers pretty far away from what I and many others refer to as “torture porn.” Saw, Hostel, Human Centipede and the like, never really appealed to me. Likely because I saw them as actually possible. In a world with grotesque levels of inequality, not just of wealth and opportunity, but also the metrics that we value human life itself that we currently have, I find some of those darker stories not fantastical at all, but actually plausible. Maybe that’s a subtle component of where the true horror of them reside.

For me, I lean heavily into the paranormal/metaphysical and religious horrors. The Conjuring, The Ring, The Grudge, as prime examples. The belief of the aspects of the reality that exist based on faith and esoteric belief systems that attempt to make sense of the improbability of creation as a whole. That ascribe weight to emotions and intent that persist beyond death, taking the form of an insatiable curse or malignancy that refuses remedy.

There’s something... something that just hits different when you zoom out and look at the nature of horror genres. The slashers/torture porn/adjacent (Final Destination I’m looking at you and your log trucks!) ones, even if you can’t summarize the exact plot, you already know that it’ll involve gore. Often spectacularly, and depending on how eager the director wants to hook the young male audience, gratuitous nudity.

With the movies that dig into the paranormal spectrum, such calculations go right out the window. Any story that involves the demonic or supernatural, you can’t always assume such things. Reality warping, perception manipulation, hell(is this a pun in this context?) the psychological wounding that takes place is truly disturbing when done well. Yes, they have their usual tropes as well, the whole “The power of Christ compels you!” and all that, but in their highest form, having supreme faith doesn’t always work. Just ask Father Merrin. This aside though, it does make for very thought provoking fare. Especially when watching this style from other cultures.

The more action oriented ones, or dystopian future/dreamscape ones like Silent Hill or any film involving zombies(Night of the Living Dead, or Resident Evil ((Yea, I’m grouping the T Virus in with this one)) hit a different nerve. Gore, action, oddly enough romance sometimes, but also the social aspect that societal collapse has on groups of people put in desperate situations. One need visit any comic con to see someone playing Pyramid Head, or explore the lore of Negan and Rick to see how such things ripple through the meta of the time.

Sometimes I enjoy the B movie stories, the ones that don’t attempt to portray themselves as anything more than what they are: A couple hours of entertainment, an opportunity to have a couple of beers or sugary drinks, with popcorn or appetizers in the company of friends. Laughing when Ash resurrects “Groovy” or A deranged llama from space decides to extract justice from a motley group of co-eds.

I totally understand why some people dislike horror movies though. After all, how can you blame someone for not wanting their entertainment to trip their nervous system into fight or flight while sitting on their living room couch? Or wanting to ruminate on whether the TV in their bedroom still has their best interests at heart? (Looking at you Ring/Ringu!) But for me? It’s worth it.

While I may not always be in the mood for a good horror movie, its often not long until I find myself watching one. It’s hard to resist an opportunity to enjoy the multifaceted education buried amidst a warped thought experiment on screen. The variety of thought triggers, and mental errands they send my mind on are wonderful, a multi sensory cerebral roller coaster from the comfort of the couch. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with friends.

Always with snacks.

- KC

Parking in downtown Boston is a dubious proposal even on the days when fortune finds itself comfortably in your favor. Charles street, a curious segue as city streets go, cleanly bifurcating Boston Common is particularly special. One side of the street holds a prized host of metered parking. Each spot chaperoned by deciduous trees, offering seasonally appropriate levels of shade to those blessed few who land one of those spots.

Boston is an old city. Walking its roads, it’s difficult to imagine that not a single one of your footsteps fall on virgin ground. Every moment of history stylized in steel or bronze. Or captured moment in photograph where lighting, topography, and smiling faces align, quite possibly is likely shared with someone else.

Eventually though, you’ll find yourself inside your car, most likely heading towards Storrow drive. Your journey out of the city an experience that you also share with countless others. The only variable being the individual perception of the memories brought along. Though fairly dense, Boston itself is not particularly large. It is not long, traffic aside, that you can find yourself in the suburbs, and sooner yet that civilization begins to thin. In the eves and nooks of the landscape barely observed, often taken for granted as we speed towards our respective destinations, the New England that once was, has ways of melting out of the background.

If you look closely… you can see them. No, not the elderly barns that have gone to seed, wizened grain silos with improvised sunroofs, or other generic countryside fare seen as almost stop motion blurs as we whiz by at 65 mph. I am talking about the stone walls. Those steel grey boundaries that snake over, through, and across the little hamlets and spaces reclaimed by nature.

The last ice age is what laid down the working material for these constructs. About 12,000 years ago, endless tons of granite, gneiss, and schist, were scattered prolifically across New England, to the bane of early farmers, courtesy of the Laurentide ice sheet. In an early version of the Lemons and Lemonade proverb, I suppose when ancient ice age glaciers give you a stupid amount of rock… build rock walls.

Yes, they were used for land boundaries, demarcations, navigation and the like, but there’s something special about them. 2-4 foot high walls, no mortar, just… stone. Lasting hundreds of years, undisturbed, marking things that may or may not still be relevant. Likely an afterthought in the lives of their builders, names lost under the patina of time, their works a subtle legacy that something was here before.

Not quite a couple pairs of initials inside of a heart carved into the craggy bark of a sugar maple tree. Perhaps instead an ode to purpose and function, barely heard, just above a whisper, more at home as part of an aesthetic. I don’t think everything needs some deep or profound meaning though. I think there’s enough dignity in just being a part of the before, and still being around to quietly ride into the after for as long as it’ll let you.

-KC

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It was 2019, I was on the tail end of a heavy relationship that had an even heavier ending when I saw a crazy good deal on a 1 bedroom apartment in downtown Pittsburgh. I needed a fresh start, somewhere new to clear the air and chart a new direction away from what I had just been through.

The thing though? This place was unlike anywhere I had lived before. This was a luxury high rise, with 26 stories! I’d never lived somewhere like this before! Listen, we’re talking concierge, rows of those art deco style mailboxes standing at attention and looking flawless in their brass accoutrement. (I had to put that in italics because oh you know I am enunciating every beautifully pretentious syllable of that word). Underground garage parking, and some other stuff like a pool, gym, and tennis court, but I am far too much of an introvert for that to be much of a selling point for me.

The apartment available to me? a 10th floor, 1000 sq ft 1 bed. When I walked into that space I had to pause. A small foyer, a relatively small kitchen to my left, a small hall leading to a serviceable bathroom, but in front of me was an absolutely immaculate living room, soft white carpet, freshly painted white walls, with 4 enormous floor to ceiling windows. The bedroom was even better! this one measured 13x20 with the same color scheme. Two more equally massive windows, with one of them looking at St. Benedict the Moor Catholic Church. I had to laugh because initially I thought that the statue on top of the church was a black version of Jesus, so you can appreciate my raised Pentecostal ass having some reservations about the son of God standing 24/7 rain or shine vigil over my bedroom.

But I digress.

The bedroom and living room sold me. I didn’t look any further, and in my eager haste I learned something that I somehow failed to learn in all my moves, and in my past career as a leasing agent in Boston. Something so small, yet so crucial to happiness that I had to spend some time with St. Benedict in deep reflection. Most of the time when considering a kitchen, I really am only looking at whether the stove is gas or electric, and if there’s enough storage space to accommodate my borderline doomsday prepper food stores. Now? I had to add a new box to check: outlets.

This small but functional kitchen? Only had one outlet.

One.

Sure I could get a splitter, but no, NO.

I am not going there, I shouldn’t have to!

And I didn’t.

Is it still being petty when you are the only victim of your own pettiness? Do you still retain some honor if it’s not quite a hill you’re dying on?

I’m not sure, but I did my best to make it work. Things just took a little longer.

The shower head was chin height, but I’m 6’4 so its okay.

The vent in the bathroom sometimes carried the completely in Greek radio program some distant neighbor liked to listen to at odd hours.

And the kitchen had one outlet.

But it was there I discovered how to assemble gallery walls. I got to refine my taste in art, learned how to fail at making baguettes, and really cement the core concepts of the “Post Industrial Surrealism” I now use to describe my personal motif.

And now years later, I still count the outlets in the kitchen. Because I swear before the statue of black Jesus that I will not be so hoodwinked again!

-KC

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A mildly profound, dry humor spoken word short about ceiling fans, chance, and acceptance.

Yes, it’s about ceiling fans. No, I don’t know why it hit so hard either.

The “Kind Chicken Regular” was a series I wanted to try when I started Kind Chicken. A series of strange spoken word shorts that range from the lightly surreal to thoughtful and ridiculous.

I’d love your feedback!

-KC

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In my humble opinion, the best hours of the day are between midnight and 4:30 am. I call them the “Passing hours.” I also concede that I’m probably the only person that calls them that. It sounds romantic, and even a bit mysterious. But it fits.

Sitting on the porch, wearing a thick bathrobe over a t shirt and sweats. A me sized cup of tea in one hand (24oz minimum), cigarette or vape in the other, with nothing but the hushed ambiance of the night as company. I’ve spent many nights like this. Chasing down thought tangents, briefly interrupted by the odd passing car, or a door closing as a 2nd or 3rd shifter returns home or heads out to work for the night. The air just smells cleaner, feels quieter, as if somehow purified by the gentle halos of street lights and traffic lights that continue to signal to no one in particular. All of this gets better if you have rain, snow, or if you’re in a more rural spot where fireflies can keep you company.

Sometimes I wonder what they talk about as they go on about their nightly socializing. I tend to do my best work at night. Less distractions, and more importantly less opportunity for distractions, since most of the world is asleep, or entering a place where any company begins to become more intimate in nature. Whether romantic, platonic, or somewhere in between right?

Even in the times I lived squarely within the hustle of the city, this window of time was more accurate. People left the bars and went home, their mind states in transition just as their clothes would soon be. Snazzy threads and expensive shoes swapped out for fuzzy slippers and sweatpants. You could walk through Boston’s financial district at 3am and find no one but the odd delivery truck dropping off the following mornings newspapers or pallets of office supplies. A strange thing when you’re surrounded by the great and windowed monoliths of polished concrete that pack that part of the city.

The nature of conversation changes, as if beneath the moon things become more real. The distance between reality and illusion begins to ripple just a bit, making lies easier to tell, while paradoxically allowing deeper truths to rise to the surface. In my life, these were the hours when I had the conversations that revealed who my ride or die friends were. The ones who would stand next to you when the time came to rebuild after the castle had finally finished burning to the ground. How many times we would see someone’s truest nature and intention, gathered in someone’s living room, bedroom, or backyard campfire.

I am my most focused at night. Always have been. My ritual has only gotten more refined as I’ve grown older. Writing this piece at 1:20 AM, I sit with a tobacco and oud lit, a cup of water, thermos of chai, a protein shake, peppermint tea, green tea, and a Chillstep or Melodic dubstep mix streaming as I go. Just enough distractions to help me focus, a contradiction that the ADHDers among us would appreciate I’m sure. Sometimes I’ll get up and go for a walk. 15-20 minutes, nothing crazy to just enjoy the stillness outside.

The sun and I don’t get along, we respect each other enough to tolerate the necessary trespassing that occurs for daily life. But we try to be respectful. As a child we had a better relationship, It used to love seeing me play with my friends at school, or running around futilely trying to vent the abundance of energy that raged nearly uncontrolled from a younger body.

It was during the teenage years things changed though. Night was when our DnD campaigns went full bore, when we’d play the backyard games in one of our friends backyard. Engage in harmless hi-jinx and just be free for a time away from the normal daytime constraints that becoming an adult necessitated. The moon became a much more accommodating friend then, never passing judgment, always keeping a watchful eye over us. Just enough light to guide us. Just enough presence to remind us we weren’t alone.

How about you? Are you one of those sun loving types? Perhaps an “Edgewalker” most active at dawn and dusk?

Or are you like me, sitting out on your porch, watching the world go by beneath the stars. Wondering where the fireflies go when it rains.

-KC

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I’ve always been terrible at math.

Decimals, fractions, multiplication, and division? Sure.
But the minute you start adding in symbols and weird floating lines?

You might as well ask me to decipher hieroglyphics.
In braille.

Do you remember math class?

You’d struggle through weeks of homework, only to be handed a page full of numbered bullet-pointed nightmares. And then the dreaded phrase:

“Show your work.”

I barely understood what I was doing on a good day.
My thoughts were like banana pudding and silly string in a food processor.

And now I’m supposed to explain that mess with any degree of coherence?

And you’re going to grade me on it?

Let’s not do that.
Please?

Statistics wasn’t much better.
They’d ask: “What are the odds of winning the lottery if you buy two tickets?”

My inconveniently over-efficient brain, which had already memory dumped everything from the study guide the night before, calmly replies:

“Small.”

Thank you, brain. You’ve been very helpful.

I’ll just go re-register now, since the odds of me passing this class and the answer to that question are the same:

“Small.”

Every so often I meet someone who majored in mathematics, and I look at them like a minor celebrity.
Somewhere between Neil Patrick Harris in Starship Troopers and Walter White.

If that’s you? You have my utmost respect.
If not?
You can join me in utmostly respecting those who do.

- KC

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I had this bright hazmat orange poncho that went with me on all my Boy Scout camping trips. It was huge, which suited me, because I was pretty substantial myself. I stood about five foot eight and about 165 pounds going into fifth grade.

Clothes were a bit tricky; Marshalls and Burlington Coat Factory could only do so much sometimes. Especially when it came to camping outerwear. It didn’t help that I had an irrational dislike of raincoats. I found them too constricting, and even though their drawbacks were the same as ponchos, it just hit different. Doffing a raincoat seemed more arduous and... bland, compared to the dramatic flourish you could do with a poncho. My poncho in particular.

Other ponchos couldn’t measure up to mine. They were pretenders in comparison, falling either too short so the back rode up and made your butt wet when you sat down, or in a downpour leaving the spaces below your mid-thigh vulnerable. They were also mostly clear or black, which—even though “Road Work Ahead” orange clashed with pretty much everything, I was happy to adopt into my still-coalescing identity.

I took it with me on all our trips, shaking it out and folding it into a fanny-pack-sized rectangle, where it would sit until the next trip.

Since it wasn’t part of my uniform, its absence from post-trip cleanup went unnoticed by my mom. Me too, for that matter, though for different reasons. Why launder something that gets rained on?

Over time, though, an interesting thing began to happen.

You can’t have camping trips without campfires. And if you have campfires, you have campfire smoke. Months and years of smoke began to alter that poncho, giving it a rich smoky aroma that began to mimic bacon. Delicious, smoky bacon.

Noticing this wasn’t off-putting; if anything, it made my poncho more unique.

Rainy days now meant that I would smell like breakfast all day long. Who doesn’t love bacon?

For years that poncho was my bad-weather standby, seeming to stay just as oversized as I progressed through adolescence into youthful manhood, just as smoky and just as orange.

Then one day it was no longer there. As if the illustrator overseeing my reality had tired of drawing it, and just erased it, not even having the common decency of leaving little red eraser rubbings behind to alert me of the change. But to be fair, I’m not even sure I noticed; it’s just as likely that it was lost to the fugue of growing up, when life started getting real busy, real quick. One small unintentional betrayal among many, I’m sure.

Now it likely sits in some pile of a thousand other forgotten tidbits in some in-between space, caught between memory and reality. Wherever it is, remembered or not, I wonder if it’s still waiting for the boy that it kept dry from the rain.

Probably still smelling a bit like breakfast.

- KC

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I need y’all to really keep that in mind as we start this week by talking about the weird things we (I hope it’s “we”) used to do as kids to pass the time in school.

Did you ever smear Elmer’s glue all over your hands just to peel it off once it dried?
And then, after admiring the perfect glue-cast of your fingerprints, thumbprints, maybe a palm crease or knuckle ridge…
You rolled it into a little ball.
And maybe gave it a small… chew?

Just a nibble?
A little tooth tap?

That glue was a full sensory jackpot in a little white-and-orange bottle.
Thank goodness it was non-toxic.

Or how about your first set of scented markers? Going from color to color like you were discovering buried treasure.
My favorite was always brown.
Most brands made that one smell like root beer.

Crayons were always disappointing.

So colorful, looked great in that little yellow and green box.

But just smelled like wax and paper.

A missed opportunity, if you ask me.

But there’s something sweet about looking back at life then, or even trying to look at life now with the eyes we had then.

Back when everything felt brand new.
When our imagination lived right next door to the waking world, just waiting to bleed through at a moment’s notice.

Did you have a favorite toy you snuck to school?
The one that lived in your pocket and maybe wasn’t exactly parent approved but was 100% kid tested?

Mine was a Micro Machines jet fighter.
Fit perfectly in my palm.

Felt like freedom.

Still kinda does.

-KC

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We’ve all seen them.

Standing at busy intersections, in front of convenience stores, gathered together in the seedier parts of town. They usually come equipped with hastily written script on some repurposed surface, usually cardboard. The message on it is unimportant but we all know what they’re looking for.

Money.

Like a modern equivalent to “don’t feed the animals,” somewhere along the way we were told things like, “Don’t give them anything,” “They’ll use it for drugs,” “They’re scamming you,” “You’ve heard the stories! Someone followed one and they drove off in a BMW!”

I’m not here to convince you that every person asking for help is telling the truth.

I’m not going to try and do that.

What I am asking is this: Hop in and ride with me for a min, just a minute.

There are scammers in every walk of life.

Thieves in every tax bracket.

But we also live in a time where most people are struggling, just one missed paycheck, one emergency, one accident away from not being able to make rent.

Section 8 and low income housing have wait lists years long, and there aren’t always other options.

Sometimes, there’s just the street.

Some well meaning folk suggest offering food, information, time, or taking someone directly to a restaurant as ways to avoid being scammed, or feeling taken advantage of. Often with that, come others speaking of how offers of food and the like were declined, so they “don’t do that anymore.”

But what I would like to point out is:

The they, in they, are human, in a world with other humans.

The risks of food being tampered with are real.

There’s a chance that your innocent kindness may come with not so innocent strings.

Not everyone wants to sit and eat dinner with a stranger under the banner of charity.

Sometimes people don’t want the reminder of their current situation.

Or deal with the judgment or the shame.

Maybe just eat in peace while they try to figure out their next step.

Sure, it’s often said “Well beggars can’t be choosers.”

But they’re still people.

People that life has stripped nearly everything else away except the ability to choose.

Even that can be precarious.

So, if it’s in you to give, give.

Give without the expectation of how it will be used.
Give without the need to know the full story.

Because just as being generous doesn’t make you naive, falling on hard times doesn’t make them less human.

So ultimately?

Give.

Or don’t.

Because it’s not really about them.

It’s about you.

-KC

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He was a great roommate who became an even better friend. On the surface, our differences were as numerous as our similarities. Both of us grew up poor, him Vermont poor, coming up in the economic badlands poor, nuclear family with bad luck poor. Me? City poor, single parent latchkey kid poor, first generation figuring America out with no instruction manual poor.

But we’d play those epic 2-3 hour Magic the Gathering EDH battles when I was done or taking a break from the rigors of fighting my way through nursing school, or he taking a moment to stop drowning under the torrent of emails flooding the financial services department he worked in. We never really quite meshed, he and I… not in the ways that many friends do. In the same space? We’d vibe and vibe hard, my ridiculous and absurd nature drawing out laughter straining behind his veneer of civility.

Him: “Now what makes you think that’s okay?”

Me: “Because someone had to say it you shitting egg!”

Us: *Laughing*

I remember a conversation we had about milkshakes, how he would always order a vanilla milkshake whenever we’d do late night food orders. One day I asked him:

Me: “Dude, why do you always order a Vanilla shake? Why not order something different?”

Him: “Because I like Vanilla.”

Me: “But, why not try something different? There’s no such thing as a bad milkshake, and you might find something you like even more!”

Him: “But I know I like vanilla now, so why not just order the thing I know I’d like?”

Me: *confused short circuiting noises, with the most majestic left eye twitches*

This was our friendship in a nutshell. It extended to other things too. I was religious, he wasn’t. I believe in ghosts, demons, and have a huge interest in the metaphysical. Paranormal horror is one of my favorite genres, whereas for him, the consummate atheist and skeptic believed in none of that. I looked for excuses to make the world bigger, he was happy to just...be.

A day came when I would be watching one of those dramatized paranormal shows like “A Haunting” or “Celebrity Ghost Stories” and he plopped down on the opposing couch and watched with me. At first, he’d join me occasionally. Eye rolls. Sarcastic guffaws. Calling out the formula these shows followed:

Idyllic home. Couple in a transitional stage. Weird feelings. One partner dismisses. Problems show up. Same partner doubles down on dismissals. Relationship strain. Repeat until bad thing happens to skeptical partner. Intermediary shows up. Dramatic exit from property, or successful blessing/exorcism/spiritual remediation.

He called it out, and I didn’t deny it. It didn’t make it less fun for me to watch, even if we had cracked its code.

But once in awhile became a few times a week. a few times a week became marathon sessions. Somewhere along the way, it stopped being “me watching while he humored me” and grew into “our thing” All of these shows lost their titles and became episodes of “Time to Move!” Where he as a skeptic would evaluate the going on’s the shows protagonists endured, and declare when his threshold would be crossed.

Some days it would be the whispers in the dark.

Small knick knacks flying across the room would get him one foot out the door.

Anything dripping down the walls with writing in the bathroom mirror, had a 100% self eviction rate.

The day came when my own “Time to move” had arrived. I had graduated nursing school, passed my boards, found work further away. He was happily wading through his emails, and existing in his vanilla milkshake routine.

Because he had found what he believed to be his happiness, while I was chasing what I believed to be the start of mine. We were so different, and though entropy and inertia do what they do, we sometimes reach out and laugh.

“You still in Detroit?”

“Nah dude that was a few moves ago, I’m back in Pittsburgh now.”

“You muggins, you ever gunna settle down?”

“I dunno. Maybe when you order something other than Vanilla.”

We both laughed, because we both knew that I’d probably move again before he ever changed that order.

-KC

Dry humor spoken word short about the one pencil we can’t let go of.
The little pencil that gave its all—down to the final millimeter.

The “Kind Chicken Regular” was a series I wanted to try when I started Kind Chicken. A series of strange spoken word shorts that range from the lightly surreal to thoughtful and ridiculous.

I’d love your feedback!

-KC

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COVID was a surreal and very strange time for almost all of us wasn’t it? Depending on where you lived the effects could have been pretty dramatic. The sudden isolation did weird things to some people. A sort of forced introspection that led people down some fairly unusual rabbit holes.

I have always been an aficionado of all things horror and dystopian. Movies like The Matrix, Equilibrium, and Mad Max (original), or video games like Fallout and Metro 2033 all deeply resonated with me. Something about how they existed part ways between potential and nostalgia, and monsters aside the possibility of their realization hinged largely on choices we as a people have yet to make.

When the quarantines came down, I remember sitting in my living room, thinking specifically on how much of the music in Fallout was created between the 1940s and 1950s, before the creation of magnetic and optical based mediums. Which given the post nuclear apocalypse setting made sense.

CDs, cassettes, the cloud, hell even 8 tracks would have been unlikely to survive the radiation and EMPs of a true nuclear holocaust! Everything...

Except Vinyl.

Vinyl enthusiasts often claim that modern technology is simply unable to reproduce the truly “authentic” sound of a fully analog recording. That MP3s and MP4s lack the warmth that records provide. Then there’s the ritual of it all. Unsheathing the record, placing the record, flipping the record, and taking a few moments to appreciate the artwork.

The world was shut down, I had plenty of time to try and incorporate a new ritual into my life!

I didn’t know if their claims were true, but the idea was intoxicating.

So I began collecting. Amazon, Ebay, local record stores and Discogs became my friends. I set out to gather my essential music collection, assembling all the albums that if the world as we knew it came to an end, I would have my tunes intact.

I hit every genre, discovering along the way that vinyl was expensive as hell! Who knew that some pressings of Alice in Chains or Groove Armada could fetch hundreds of dollars, whereas I could snag Throwing Copper for thirty bucks!

What had started as an arguably reasonable reaction to the rampant uncertainty of the time began to twist into an obsession. “What if I get bored and need something different?” “What if someone comes by scavenging, and after finding my record collection next to my skeleton, there’s nothing they’d like?” “I will not be posthumously judged for being a poor host!”

So I broadened my collection further, while still being representative to my eclectic tastes of course. A little German symphonic metal and Jazz appropriate for Sunday morning brunch found its way into the fold. This would continue until my hundred record capacity rack had reached its fill, drawing my temporary dopamine starved madness to a close.

I have no idea if vinyl sounds better than digital, and I can’t tell you with any degree of certainty if I even care. I do enjoy the ritual of it though.

It feels nice sitting on the porch with a cup of tea while a record plays in the living room.

I enjoy getting up to flip it and setting the needle precisely down again.

There’s a thoughtful slowness to perusing the rack to decide what is next on the list.

Was it all worth it? Meh, I don’t know, ask me again on Sunday.

I found this cool French toast recipe I want to try.

-KC

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A bizarre and offbeat humored tale about a duck handled umbrella, performed spoken word style. It was more than just weather protection. It was a duck-shaped friend with spine problems.

The “Kind Chicken Regular” was a series I wanted to try when I started Kind Chicken. A series of strange spoken word shorts that range from the lightly surreal to thoughtful and ridiculous.

I’d love your feedback!

-KC

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I was one of the fortunate ones. My mom would take me out to eat sometimes.

She worked a lot, so those nights were how we caught up.
Her, too tired to cook.
Me, too young to understand the weight of that exhaustion.
Just happy to go out.

There was this cute little Polynesian spot in the Fresh Pond area of Cambridge, which had giant Easter Island style totems as part of their decor. Aku Aku it was called.

The lure was that they had a great buffet for not a lot of $.

And a *soft serve ice cream machine.*

I know right? Where dreams begin and end for a kid!

We’d talk like parents and children do. Then one night, when the server asked what I wanted to drink, she suggested something new:

A Shirley Temple.

I had no idea what it was.
I understood it wasn’t alcoholic, but the look?
That picture screamed Adults Only.

Cherry? – Check.

Whipped Cream? – Check.

Sweet? – Check.

And then the ultimate calling card of an adult beverage presented itself: a tiny, colorful tissue paper umbrella.

*Deep Breath* Check.

I was like 9 so my checklist wasn’t that long ok?

When it arrived, my world changed. Of course it was delicious.
But the umbrella?
That is what fascinated me.

Naturally, I did what most little boys would do: Fidgeted with it until I tore it apart.

Deconstructed it like an engineer in reverse. And there, beneath the little glued cap and tissue-paper canopy, was a secret treasure:
A thinly rolled section of Chinese newspaper.

What is this even?!

The Shirley Temple itself was immediately forgotten.

This scrap of mystery might as well have been Asgardian runes.

For years after that day I’d always break down the umbrellas, and show anyone who’d listen to an overexcited kid all to eager to share the secret that made his world a little more wondrous.

The little paper umbrella was one of mine, what was one of yours?

-KC

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
— Michael Jordan

What the hell am I doing?

Starting these crazy projects, writing whatever visions emerge from the chaos of my mind. Starting off with minute reflections and growing to 5000+ word narratives on mental disorders, among other things. With the audacity if not adjacent arrogance that my words somehow add to the conversation...

Any conversation honestly, I’ll take it lol.

I also write satire, humor, multi-genre fiction, and poetry with the same conviction, even worse, I try to get some of it published. Which may or may not happen, but the thing is?

If I stop, it simply will cease being a potential, and become a verdict. See, my pile of rejections continues to grow, 160+ since November of 2025. I pivot, I refine, I absorb the hits not as attacks on my skill, but as opportunities to maybe get better.

I’m not an MFA product, nor out of any writing programs. My beginning and middle are humble as hell. While everyone was freaking out bout em dashes being proof positive of AI composition, I was learning what they even were! Same with semi colons! (still working on it. I’ve settled on it being used for joining two kinda not yet finished sentences?)

But I write anyway, I didn’t know how to edit, so I learn. I didn’t know how to trim, so I try to learn that too. What’s the difference between CNF, prose poetry, and writing a piece via allegory without a distinct protagonist but essentially a landscape of emotional watercolors rendered via adjective and purposeful purplosity? (That sentence was fun to write tbh. I took purple and -osity and fused it together to make a word. It isn’t legit but it sounds delightful to me, so humor me ok?) I still don’t know the difference, but I am learning.

And that’s the point.

Those rejections will keep piling up. Until one day I submit to the right editor at the right venue at the right time—or my writing gets good enough to earn that first placement. All this to say, keep at it, because I am.

I dream big.

I dream hard.

And each bounce is simply a part of the dues I gotta pay for the life I want.

I know there’s no discount for this admission.

But I got a feeling the show is gunna be worth it.

-KC

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Death.

The end of the term, journey, adventure and road.

Taboo in most Western cultures, but let’s talk about it.

More specifically, why are you NOT afraid of it? Or at least, how to you manage the idea of mortality?

I can only speak for myself, but I believe that regardless of what faith you follow, or not, whatever comes next is just another grand adventure. I *refuse* to believe that it’s as simple as the religious books and systems make it out to be. Whether it ends up being fun, strange, or something purely beyond comprehension?

I think it’ll at least be interesting.

In my day job as an RN, I’ve seen too many young lives cut short, and too many of our elderly make it to the finish line without having actually lived. I can’t believe that it’s just one and done. I can’t accept that an all-powerful, loving creator would build this universe, with all its intricacies, only to send us into the grand arcade of existence with just a single quarter.

So when my time comes, whenever that may be, I’ll meet it with fingers crossed and a hopeful smile. In the meantime, there’s so much to do, and so much to enjoy.

Even when it seems hard to find.

It’s good to be grateful for what we have, no matter how little, especially when many others have less.

What about you?

-KC

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I was living in Pittsburgh at the time, home of the Steelers, Primanti’s sandwiches, a whole lot of Bridges, and a bizarre phenomenon called “Tunnel Traffic”.. (I don’t know why people slow down THAT much for a tunnel but hey.)

A date had canceled on me unexpectedly that evening, so finding myself with suddenly no plans I decided the best way to recover my evening was to simply have a date with myself! Now, being quite the hot date that I am, I would accept nothing less than a trip to White Castle.

Clearly, I have high standards.

White Castle is a place of myth and legend, they even made a movie about it! (Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. It’s pretty funny!) I’m not sure what makes them so wonderful, the novelty of the steamed burgers? Their actually thick shakes? Growing up we didn’t have a White Castle within a 3 state radius and in Pittsburgh the closest was over by Harrisburg, a good 4-5 hours away. Through mountains, valleys, unpredictable Central PA weather, and the risk of encountering unpredictable Central PA deer at 80mph.

Worth it.

I took this trip and made some time for myself, for—myself. I loaded up old playlists of music I haven’t heard in YEARS. Jamming out and remembering where I was and what I was doing when I first heard a song in particular, as if I was going back through old bookmarks. The Cranberries, White Zombie, Pearl Jam, LIVE, Wu Tang, Goo Goo Dolls, The Crystal Method, and Stabbing Westward were some of my companions in my journey. Each song a flash of memory, a little reel—some happy, some sad, but all lived.

Before I knew it I was pulling into the 24hr White Castle and ordering a giant crave case, some nugs, fries, and of course a large chocolate shake. (Honestly I don’t even know what it is, but their shakes are top tier as fast food shakes go.) This was pre-covid so I didn’t have to take a loan out for this haul.

I ate on the way home, arriving home stiff legged and with a slightly numb rear end, but satisfied. There would be other dates, other Saturday nights, but you know...not every adventure needs some grand plan, sometimes, the best ones start with a craving and a long drive.

-KC

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I was a boy scout.

Go ahead…get all the jokes out of your system.

I’ll wait.

It’s nothing we haven’t joked about ourselves.

We called ourselves “Death scouts.” A band of rogue scholars covered in merit badge drip.

That also happened to enjoy lighting stuff on fire and jamming out to They Might Be Giants and Smashing Pumpkins.

Was our title justified?

Not really.

But it sounded cool.

That part’s not the point though.

What really matters, and what this week is about, is the treasures the forest would grant us for our innocent delinquency.

A Stick.

Not just any stick, though.

We’re talking one worthy of King Arthur, Merlin, or William Wallace.

Perfectly balanced.

Mostly free of bugs.

Not so dried out that it would crack after a few strikes and give you splinters.

No.

This stick?

Was so perfect that it transported you.

To another world.

Another time.

When imagination was your sword, your shield, and your quest.

Whoever found the stick was the hero.

The rest of us fell in line, in equal parts instinct and our usual D&D alignments.

Taking up lesser sticks because the call was too strong not to answer.

We’d wage epic battles.

Claim invisible kingdoms.

Adventured across lands that existed somewhere between dreams and dirt.

Eventually, the moment would pass.

We’d relinquish our armor and shields to the forest floor.

Return our weapons to the grand armory of the campfire.

And make s’mores.

-KC