About

I'm Jeff Mahoney, a retired programmer who traded debugging code for debugging life—with mixed results.

I write humor essays about the small disasters and quiet absurdities of everyday existence: home improvement projects that reveal existential truths, pets who understand peace better than their owners, and the gap between who we think we are and who we actually become when nobody's watching.

I started Existential Neighbor because somewhere between doomscrolling and duct tape, I realized most of us are just making it up as we go—holding life together with competence we don't really have and hoping nobody notices. This site is for anyone who's ever stood in their kitchen at midnight, holding a tool they don't understand, wondering how they got here.

I live in Ohio with my wife, two kids, an Irish Setter, and a Russian Blue cat. Between them, they provide endless material and very little sympathy.

Most days I'm trying to figure out if competence is real or just something we tell ourselves so we can sleep at night.