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Great Dinner in PA with my cutie

Dinner in Pennsylvania always seems to arrive the way weather does—quietly at first, then all at once. We stepped out into the evening with that small, earned kind of happiness: full plates behind us, a little warmth in our cheeks, and the sense that the night didn’t need to be anything more than what it already was.

I keep thinking about the way places hold you. A restaurant table, a familiar street, the soft clink of silverware and glass—ordinary things that still feel like a marker in time. It’s the same comfort I find in old houses: not perfect, not staged, just lived-in. You can almost hear the room breathing around you.

After dinner we paused for a photo, standing close like we always do when we’re not trying to make a moment out of it. Two patterned shirts, an easy smile, the dark shutters framing us like a memory you can step back into. The window behind us caught a little glow, as if the inside of the building was still holding onto the evening.

I don’t remember every bite, but I remember the steadiness of it—how good it feels to share a meal with someone who makes the world feel a bit brighter and a bit bigger.

Great Dinner in PA with my cutie, tucked away like a small keepsake.

Introducing our new baby Dyson

There’s a certain quiet that settles into a home when something small finally feels safe enough to fall asleep.

Dyson has only just arrived, and already he’s learning the soft geography of our days: the dip of the couch cushion, the familiar pull of a blanket, the way afternoon light fades into the same corners every evening. In the photo he’s sprawled out in that fearless, upside-down way puppies do—like he’s been here forever, like the world has always been this gentle.

We keep calling him our “new baby,” half joking, half telling the truth. Because the house changes when a puppy comes in. It’s not cluttered or chaotic so much as newly alive. You start listening differently—less for the creak of the floorboards and more for the tiny sounds: paws padding down the hall, a collar tag ticking, a sigh as he finally settles.

He’s still figuring us out, and we’re still figuring him out. But there’s something steady already taking root. Not a big, dramatic shift—more like a quiet brightness, the kind that makes ordinary moments feel a little wider.

Welcome home, Dyson.

Weekend Art Culture

Weekend Art Culture is the small miracle where the city loosens its grip for an hour and lets you breathe differently. You step off the sidewalk and into a room that feels tuned—quieter, brighter, like the air has been edited.

In front of Roy Lichtenstein bedroom pop art, I watched a bedroom turn into a kind of diagram: crisp outlines, punchy color, dots that pretend to be texture but also refuse it. A lamp becomes a statement. A bed becomes a rectangle of intention. Even the shadows look like they agreed to behave.

The funny thing is how familiar it all is. You recognize the furniture the way you recognize a dream after waking—almost yours, but not quite. The tidy scene feels domestic and distant at the same time, like home remembered through a window.

Museums always return you to yourself in little ways. The soft scuff of shoes on wood floors. The pause of a stranger who stops beside you, both of you measuring the same image, both of you briefly quiet. And then you leave, back into the city’s noise, carrying a cleaner line of thought—something bright and flat that makes the real world look newly textured.

ZAMartz Best of 2017

| #2017bestnine #nye #boyfriendswhobestof
| ???
| Wow, What a year it has been. There have certainly been many highs and lows, but I’m going to focus on the positive, ZAMartz best of 2017, information to recap. I will be covering some of the best content and pageviews on the ZAMartz website as well as the best social media post of 2017 on instagram.

Top 10 ZAMartz Pageviews of 2017

WordPress Extension Details

1698 Total downloads of two extensions launched mid-year 2017
Overall Rating 4 out of 5 stars

Resting at Home Plate

Come eventide, with loaded bases, he framed the box to bat;
points into distant, setting sun, and slowly adjusts his cap.

Oh soaring mighty arc, over plate and chain-link fence,
delivered to heaven’s gates, come angelic presence whence.

Arrive amidst an all-star game, loved ones, long on deck;
hopes and praises reach you, to our MVP, we’ll never soon forget.</p

By Zachary A. Martz – In loving Memory of my little brother Jared Martz – 1990 to 2017

Presidential Photobomb

There’s a certain kind of quiet inside the Lincoln Memorial—stone and echo, like a room built to hold its breath. And then, of course, there’s us: bundled up, leaning in close, trying to fit a whole day into one small frame.

We snapped this photo and only later really noticed how perfect the timing was. Lincoln sits behind us in his permanent, patient stillness, looking like he’s tolerating the modern ritual of the selfie with the same calm he gives everything else. It feels like a photobomb, but the slow, presidential kind—less “gotcha,” more “remember where you are.”

Washington, D.C. has a way of doing that. You walk around with coffee in your hand, chatting about where to go next, and suddenly you’re standing in front of something you’ve seen your whole life in textbooks. The scale of it doesn’t hit you all at once; it comes in pieces: the cold air, the marble, the softness of light on white stone.

We came for a photo, but left with that lingering feeling that some places are bigger than their monuments. They’re built out of memory, and the quiet pressure of history, and the strange comfort of being very small for a moment—together—while something enormous sits watching from the background.

30th Birthday with original CM team

Thirty is a funny kind of milestone. It doesn’t arrive with a drumroll so much as a quiet click—like a door latching behind you—and suddenly you’re standing in a room that feels both familiar and newly lit.

This one was spent with the original CM team, gathered close beneath big gold balloon letters that spelled out a simple, bright permission to celebrate. Drinks in hand, we held still for a moment in front of a wall of books, the background hum of a home around us—shelves, frames, small evidence of everyday life. The photo catches that in-between feeling: polished enough to mark the occasion, relaxed enough to be real.

I keep thinking about how time folds people together. Work becomes friendship without anyone making an announcement. You look up and realize you’ve collected a small history—shared late nights, inside jokes, the steady rhythm of showing up. It’s not loud, but it lasts.

If birthdays are supposed to measure anything, I hope it’s this: the warmth of familiar faces, the comfort of being known, and the kind of joy that doesn’t need much more than a room, a few friends, and a little gold light bouncing around.

30th bday Bubbles with Devon

Thirty feels like a small threshold you don’t notice until you’re standing in it—hands wrapped around a glass, the room soft with warm light, and everything glittering just enough to make ordinary moments feel ceremonial.

For this 30th birthday, the bubbles did their job: they slowed time down. The gold streamers behind us caught every flicker and turned it into a kind of weather—shimmering, patient, and a little unreal. Devon and I leaned into that brightness, shoulder to shoulder, holding our drinks the way you hold a quiet wish before you say it out loud.

I love parties most for their small details: the clink of glass, the half-second of eye contact before a toast, the way laughter rises and then settles again. The camera grabs one frame, but the night is really made of movement—people drifting in and out of conversation, music in the background, a thousand tiny celebrations happening at once.

Thirty isn’t a reinvention. It’s more like a new coat pulled on from the laundry room—familiar, worn in, and suddenly meaningful when you realize how many seasons it has already seen.

Here’s to gold light, good company, and the simple kindness of marking time together.

30th Bday with Jen

Thirty feels like a small threshold you step over without noticing until you turn around and see the room differently. Jen’s 30th birthday was all warm light and gold—shimmering fringe on the wall, a little metallic party hat tilted into place, and two coupe glasses held up like punctuation.

There’s something comforting about a simple celebration: a backdrop that catches every stray bit of light, a few friends close enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, and the quiet agreement that the moment is worth keeping. The gold made everything feel brighter than it probably was, the way memory does—taking ordinary corners of a room and giving them a soft, glowing edge.

We toasted to the past decade without trying to summarize it, because you can’t. You just notice what’s been built: the friendships that hold, the laughter that comes easier, the steadier sense of self that arrives when you stop racing toward some imagined version of “adult.”

If a birthday is anything, it’s a pause—a brief stillness before the year keeps moving. Jen looked happy, the kind of happy that doesn’t need announcing. Just a smile, a glass raised, and the gold behind her catching the light like it was meant to be there all along.

Silly 30th Bday with the Boys

Thirty feels like a small threshold you step over without noticing until you look back and realize the room has changed.

This photo catches the moment before the night blurs into laughter and louder music: three friends pressed close, coupe glasses raised, a gold fringe curtain behind us catching every bit of light. It’s silly on purpose. The kind of silly you can only commit to when you’re surrounded by people who have known you long enough to not ask you to be anything else.

Birthdays can make you count things—years, plans, what’s next—but nights like this pull you back into something simpler. The warmth of a crowded room. The shine of cheap decorations that somehow feel like celebration. The easy, familiar lean-in for a photo, the kind that says we’ve been here before and we’ll do it again.

I keep thinking about how memories live alongside you, the way a house creaks in winter or how a coat becomes part of a routine. Friendships do that too. They quietly collect in the background, then show up all at once when you need a reason to toast.

Silly 30th birthday with the boys—gold, laughter, and the kind of night that leaves you grateful the next morning.

30th Bday with Bae, My 2017 Birthday Celebration

| #birthday #party #boyfriendswhobirthday

| ???

| For my 30th birthday in 2017, I was told I had to “do it big”. A concept I have never really been into for my birthday celebrations. However, being the big three zero, I decided to give it a shot.

Burger Brunch Booyah!

| ??? | #burger #brunch #booyah @davidscafenyc

| Wow, what can I say, this burger was worth all the hype at David’s Cafe! The Burger Queen Deluxe is a double patty with American cheese, pickles, lettuce, tomato and a special sauce.

Weekend means Morning Coffee so Gimme

| ☕️?? | #coffee #boyfriendsWhoBrew #weekend @gimmecoffee

| Gimme that coffee please! Angel and I have been in our new apartment for several months now and we have been an a quest for a new coffee place.

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