I drank too much. That’s my excuse. I drank too much. I try to be an accurate reporter, a memoirist who remembers, but during that stretch, age eighteen to twenty-one, alcohol gets in the way. I’ll do my best, but I won’t guarantee accuracy. During my four years in college, among the hundreds of party … Continue reading Cheesy Western all the way
Author: Jeff Cann
Eight Ways to Improve Your Writing*
Six months ago, my career as a mountain bike coach ended with a sloppy tumble over the handlebars. My coaching stint was on its final lap anyway, this was Eli’s sunset season on the team. Now he’s building his own cadre of riding partners as a budding adult. And I got an extra forty-five days … Continue reading Eight Ways to Improve Your Writing*
My New Plan
Let’s talk about my diet. Not the foods I eat, but the weight I want to lose. When I quit working at the Y five years ago, I sat at an appropriate weight. Maybe pushing the upper healthy range on the American Body Mass Index scale, but, just like people always say, it was all … Continue reading My New Plan
Davey Fend
At what age are memories reliable? We lived on Ridge Road from ’67 to ’70, just four short years, but loaded with memories. Moving away in third grade helps me pinpoint my earliest memories to that house. I have a few that predate our tiny brick Bethesda, Maryland home, but those memories are snippets, snapshots. … Continue reading Davey Fend
Stewing Poison
Spewing poison. Do you know this phrase? It came to mind riding home from the doctor’s office tonight. I’m spewing poison! My mood sucked. Bad vibes leaked from my pores. Susan kept reaching over to hold my hand, not talking because I didn’t want to talk, not talking because she didn’t want to hear what … Continue reading Stewing Poison
The Conversation
Arrrr. This photo is unrelated to the story that follows... “I think I need to see Nicole.” “You’re feeling pretty bad, huh?” Who’s Nicole? She’s the only mental health professional I see. Tourette syndrome, obsessive compulsive disorder, general anxiety disorder, (rarely) depression, social anxiety. I should employ an army of neurologists, psychiatrists and therapists. Instead, … Continue reading The Conversation
Dead Space
I was twelve when Bad Ronald first aired. American TV network ABC played it as an afterschool special—a ninety-minute movie aimed at tweens like me. They loaded it with commercials selling cereals and toys and other TV shows I might watch later that night. I can’t remember the specifics, but I imagine a frigid January … Continue reading Dead Space
Alice and Sparkle
Alice and Sparkle, I’m diving in head first. Are you up to speed on this controversy? “Author” Ammaar Reshi created a children’s book, and people are pissed. Reshi started playing around with the new Artificial Intelligence text generator ChatGPT. On a lark, he tasked it to write a children’s’ book. Happy with the results, he … Continue reading Alice and Sparkle
On Personal Essays
Trigger warning: Disturbing description of childhood death. As we pulled into the parking spot, I found what I searched for all these years. Boxes and bowls trying to look haphazard, the kind Susan and I bought for our first house, shabby-chic; mailboxes, mouths gaped like baby birds begging for worms; a ladder, handmade, stolen from … Continue reading On Personal Essays
The Date
All alcoholics have a date. The recovering ones. When was your last drink? I’ve talked with people twenty years sober, they can pin it down to the hour. I can’t. I’ve never had a date, or never known one. It was a Sunday in January. The tenth or the seventeenth. Today or next week. It … Continue reading The Date
The Attack
Saturday afternoon, three o’clock. We still sit, all of us, in our family room, poking at our devices. We’ve done this for hours. All except Eli, he worked this morning. He came home at noon and went straight to bed. Everyone’s a little hungover. Last night was rough. It started with a screech or a … Continue reading The Attack
iShower
I took a shower!!! Confetti-cannons fire. Balloons drop from the ceiling. Strobe lights flash and sirens scream. The crowd erupts in cheers and applause. Conversation: Nephew: I shower twice a day. In the morning and after I work out.Me: You Americans shower too often. I used to be an American. I started each day with … Continue reading iShower
Loss
Susan’s mom died last week. It came out of nowhere. Jeanne was well, grocery shopping at Giant with Susan’s father. Her energy dragged. She sat on a wooden bench by the pharmacy while Al finished gathering the groceries. It’s been a rough year for her. Bouts of confusion led doctors to suspect seizure activity. She … Continue reading Loss
Surrender
Can’t you show me nothing but surrender? It’s a quote from Patti Smith’s punk poem/anthem Land. I’ve already written all about the song, so I’ll spare you my unabashed praise, I just want to use the quote as my jumping off point for some thoughts about new year resolutions. Surrender: As used in the song, … Continue reading Surrender
Repo Man
Debbi: Let's go do some crimes. Duke: Yeah. Let's go get sushi and not pay. --Dialogue from the 1984 cult-classic movie Repo Man I called it a cult-classic. For the past thirty-seven years I’ve called it a cult-classic, but I just watched it. Nothing classic about it at all. Truthfully, it kind of sucked. Repo … Continue reading Repo Man
Patreon
Thatababy. Comic strip by Paul Trap - http://www.gocomics.com/thatababy Don’t worry. I’m not asking for money. Last week, I subscribed to a Patreon page. Is that terminology correct? Subscribe? I have no idea. To say it my way, I decided to pay a dollar a month to the podcasters who make Discord & Rhyme. “A dollar? … Continue reading Patreon
Average, Ordinary, Run of the Mill
In my favorite scene from the movie American Beauty, Mena Suvari, representative of a typical high school cheerleader—blonde and thin—spars with Wes Bentley’s character Ricky Fitts. Suvari’s character compares herself to Fitts’ girlfriend Jane: Yeah? Well, at least I'm not ugly! Yes, you are. And you're boring, and you're totally ordinary, and you know it. … Continue reading Average, Ordinary, Run of the Mill
Life-Changing
Life-changing. How often do you hear this term? I, for one, certainly overuse it. Possibly weekly, at least monthly. “Oh man, switching to decaf, that was life-changing!” If I take careful stock of my history, how many events actually changed my life? Like changed *all* of my life? Just a handful: marriage, kids, relocating to … Continue reading Life-Changing
Killer Robots from the Future
Why leave a comment no one will ever read? I do this regularly at washingtonpost.com. My go-to news source offers readers an opportunity to comment on their articles. I did this today. Alexandra Petri, a Washington Post opinion columnist, knocked out a mildly amusing five-hundred words on her dislike of San Francisco’s killer robot plan. … Continue reading Killer Robots from the Future
Don’t be a Karen
Maybe you’ve seen the meme. A photo shows a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut poorly on the diagonal. The left ‘half’ is about sixty percent larger than the right. The caption: Serve this to your OCD friend. It’s not really funny at all. There’s nothing clever about it. It breaks no new ground. It’s … Continue reading Don’t be a Karen
The Other Stuff 