Lithuania or Bust: Barking Up a Family Tree I Didn’t Know Existed.

One Guy’s Phd: 17 Years of Pretty helpful Discoveries

No, I don’t have a formal PhD. (Barely earned my high-school diploma.) But flipping through my journals from the past 17 years, I noticed a lot of Pretty helpful Discoveries, many I was blind to when they first occurred. Divorce triggered my journey to learn new stuff about myself. And I picked up a lot by staying open to new experiences — from above, below, strange folk, cool shrinks, crafty demons, surreal events, ER visits and way more. So if you’re looking for some laughs & new life-learnings through can’t-make-that-shit-up stories, join me. Together, we’ll poke fun at our human journey while the universe continues to have its way with us. Here’s Chapter 5…

Baltic cologne. Ever smell it? Like all of my mom’s Euro-quirky Lithuanian boyfriends, it was a scent that lingered a lot when I was a boy growing up in Mississauga. It wasn’t offensive. Just a confusing assault on my olfactory senses. A wanna-be, manly North American scent stuck somewhere between Old Spice, Tommy Hilfiger and jet fuel. Perfect for a proud dude with mismatched socks who was unsure of his place in the world.

Now at 41 with my three young daughters clutching my jacket for dear life, we were smothered by that foreign…