9 Hours Later

You will never forget 9 Hours Later which is the fifth volume in my Daily Autobiography series. It’s a daily diary written in the aftermath of divorce, while living alone again, dating as a sober man, and rebuilding momentum one ordinary day at a time. I didn’t write this to fit a genre or deliver a clean arc. I wrote it to document what actually happens when the structure of marriage disappears and you’re left alone with time, desire, discipline, and your own thoughts. Sobriety runs through everything here. I write about Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, emotional regulation, and the daily discipline required to stay sober in AA while navigating dating and modern life. As a divorced dad, I write about co-parenting, time with my kids, and the strange contrast between family life and solitude. Alongside that are reflections on work, creativity, routine, yoga, tennis, and the slow process of rebuilding personal momentum without pretending it’s linear. The humor in this book isn’t dad-joke humor. I’m not interested in safe punchlines or polite self-deprecation. This is the return of the darker, sharper humor I had as a teenager before life sanded it down—humor that comes from noticing absurdity, discomfort, and contradiction and letting it sit there. It’s closer to the tone of a dark stand-up comedy memoir than a motivational one, but it lives on the page as observation, not performance. I don’t explain the jokes. I just write what happens and let the humor emerge where it does.