I love you, I love you, I love you What's your name? I love you, I love you, I love you What's your name? Chorus of “Drunken Butterfly” by Sonic Youth. Do you blog? I’m guessing you do. I read a study showing that ninety-two percent of blog readers are also blog writers.* As a … Continue reading I love you, what’s your name
Introspection
Expiration Date
I’m going to live forever. I’ve written that before. Five years ago when I was a shiny new blogger, fit, coasting in an easy job, spending at least eight hour per week writing, immortality looked like a good idea. My kids were younger, less complicated; my relationships were better, I still had friends. I couldn’t … Continue reading Expiration Date
Wise Speech
My wife Susan does this thing (or really should I say she doesn’t do it). She doesn’t gossip. She doesn’t suppose, she doesn’t rumor, she doesn’t compare. She only talks about others when it’s necessary to talk about others. When this first started, maybe twelve years ago, it was disconcerting. Suddenly we weren’t talking to … Continue reading Wise Speech
God’s Light
Maine, It’s not just vacation-land, it’s an acid trip. That’s the caption I wanted to write on Taylor’s Facebook page when she posted this crazy photo. Around the time she snapped this picture (using her iPhone 6, not the high-end digital SLR camera she always seems to have strapped around her neck), I experienced similar … Continue reading God’s Light
What I sent
Yesterday, I applied for a grant. I think bloggers should get paid… something. It’s a hobby, yes, but it’s also a job. People rely on us for reading material. A few of the bloggers I follow have set up Patreon accounts. This is a blog-specific eCommerce interface, they call it croudfunding, where followers can make … Continue reading What I sent
Dilemma
Humid as a swamp, the temperature rising, like a steam room coming to life. Yesterday was similar, hard to breathe, the edge of hot, but that was mid-afternoon in the heat of the day. This morning, we’re just getting started. “Can we turn off the AC for a few days? I’d rather be hot than … Continue reading Dilemma
Like?
When you read a blog post do you hit Like? I do, almost every time. If I make it to the end, and I wasn’t offended—no sexism, or racism, or intolerance—I click the Like button. I see it as a marker, a tag. Like I’m a graffiti artist with a can of spray paint; I’ve … Continue reading Like?
Running beyond the edge of suburbia
We glide, side by side, matching stride and pace. Silent, except for breath, the quiet thump of rubber on asphalt, simultaneous, the steady rhythm accompanied by a pattern playing in my head. Sunny and warm, a gentle tailwind matches our pace, leaving the sensation that we’re standing still, inhaling the pollen-laden air we just breathed … Continue reading Running beyond the edge of suburbia
Roz
Roz was fat. I’d like to use a nicer word, a gentler phrase—plump, stout, chubby, big-boned—she was all of those, but seriously, she was fat. When we picked her out at the shelter, that was the draw. She sat relaxed, content, like Buddha, an imperceptible smile upon her lips, watching us fool around with the … Continue reading Roz
Blogs don’t eat crickets
Like any living creature, it must be fed, it must be nurtured, loved. Neglected, it dies or stagnates or shrinks which might be worse than death. This blog, like King Tut, the bearded dragon living caged in my family room, basking beneath heat lamps, bright white and scorching during the day, warm red and comforting … Continue reading Blogs don’t eat crickets
Where does friendship start?
My blogging friend Angela Lawson asked me to write a guest post for her blog, You are Awesome, Trying to Stay Awake in a Sleepy World: Parenting, Leadership, and Personal Development. My post is now up on her blog. For my own blog, I wanted to write about what her request means to me. In … Continue reading Where does friendship start?
Hole N’’The Rock
Carved into a cliff twelve miles south of Moab, Utah sits Hole N’’The Rock. That’s how it’s spelled, with a quotation mark--or maybe a pair of apostrophes--used as a separator. I don't know why. It’s a home, or it was forty-five years ago. Fifties kitsch, the real stuff, not knock off replicas, decorates the place. … Continue reading Hole N’’The Rock
On Writing Fiction
This is my fourth blog post about Stephen King. Similar to Donald Trump and his obsession with how many times his image has appeared on Time Magazine’s cover, Stephen King should be tweeting about the Other Stuff. He’s gotten more real estate than anyone but me. The other day I attended a large work meeting. … Continue reading On Writing Fiction
The Cat
I lie awake, the minutes after turning out my light, brain active, anticipating the drawing shade of sleep. I took Lorazepam, a mild narcotic. It numbs my brain, silences the concerns that shake me awake in the early hours of tomorrow. Sleep feels unlikely. I wait for the medicine to dissolve. I wait for my … Continue reading The Cat
Scramble
“That looks disgusting.” I was home for lunch. For the third time this winter, my work closed because of a snowstorm. Today’s was a pretty good one. By eleven o’clock we had four inches of fluffy snow. Looking out the window, a somewhat opaque veil added an inch or two each hour. Home for lunch … Continue reading Scramble
My Bad
I'm failing miserably. Actually, I posted it twenty-four hours ago, so I guess I've already failed. Miserably. Like everyone else in the United States, part of my past four days included thoughts about a certain Catholic high school boy and a soon-to-be-a-senior-citizen Native American. I've thought about them while driving home from work (because NPR … Continue reading My Bad
Untitled #1
It's a million pounds of marble. It sits like a massive boulder or a bomb-shelter two blocks from the Square, which is what we call the center of town, even though it’s a traffic circle. Past the comic book store and the candy shop and the place that sells expensive shoes from Sweden, the century … Continue reading Untitled #1
Censored by Decency
Gone are the days when I wake up an hour early to write. Long gone. This morning I was up at 5:15. That early alarm setting allows forty-five minutes of quiet self-care—coffee, news, cereal—before my kids grudgingly get out of bed. They require constant and sometimes not-so-gentle nudging towards door to start their school day. … Continue reading Censored by Decency
Shades of Gray
I recently changed jobs. I now work at a library—the finance manager: budgeting, analysis, accounting. My office, with it’s dark-stained wooden doors and frosted transom windows, is massive: 14’ x 14’ x 14’. It’s true, my office ceiling is fourteen feet high. Susan says I suffer from TMF—that’s too much furniture: three desks, five filing … Continue reading Shades of Gray
Dream Job
Blog readers of a certain age grew up with Seinfeld—NBC’s famous sitcom about nothing. That was the tagline: A show about nothing. Have you ever considered what that really means, “about nothing?” No big topics were ever raised. Each episode delved into the minutiae of the characters’ lives. We know about their personal grudges, their … Continue reading Dream Job
