Sometimes, as the week winds down, you just don’t want to do anything. This is where I was sitting on Friday afternoon, more than an hour before the end of my work day. I was tired of work, tired of my office, ready to enjoy some free time. My work: I write all around this … Continue reading -itis
Dying with Gilda Radner
One year since publishing Fragments. My favorite story from the book. As an adult, I reinvented myself. Naturally bookish and wry, and a big drinker for years, I became an athlete as well. Fitness and endurance sports. Confident, funny, and carefree. Always on the move, distracted, numb. No opportunity, no reason to revisit the past. … Continue reading Dying with Gilda Radner
The cost of doing nothing
Today’s headlines: President Trump released an executive order to dismantle the environmental regulations put in place by the Obama administration. Trump wants to put his focus on the economy. Know what? He’s probably right. We’re going to need the money. Global heating is a train barreling into the station; a skydiver plummeting to the ground; … Continue reading The cost of doing nothing
Pornography
Published one year ago this week in my memoir Fragments. My mother's birthday was last week. I totally forgot. Percussive. Dark, haunting, haunted. Repetitive, chromatic – evoking angst, possibly fear. Lyrics shouted from a distance, from the bottom of a ravine. Echoing, urgent. Chanting, mumbling, confusion. Chest tight, stomach in knots. Eight complex songs, each … Continue reading Pornography
Meaningless
Heroic feats and sacrifice are better left unsung. For those who fight too often die, and often die too young. Seriously? Poetry? Sorry, not really my thing. Won't happen again. Meaningless
Below the Surface
Hey Jeff, I didn’t realize there was an exclusivity of using the tag “tourettes”. This is news to me. I won’t be taking up your kind offer to read your post. But thanks! I’ve had only one snarky encounter in WordPress. It was a fight that I picked. That was the response. Like many WordPress … Continue reading Below the Surface
Red Light
Before Instagram. Before Snapchat. Before Oovoo, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, MySpace or email, there was the telephone. In 1986, twenty-three years old, I took a business trip. Two weeks in Denver for training on a workplace population tracking program. I worked for the mega-firm TRW. A government contractor with tens of thousands of employees. So many … Continue reading Red Light
Newbie, again
“Mr. Cann, we expect you to stay off of that trail. You need to give the woods a chance to rehabilitate.” Eighteen months ago, a pair of park service cops arrived at my door. They gave me crap about the wooded-trail starting behind my house. Decades ago, I was a hardcore runner. A serious ten-miler, … Continue reading Newbie, again
Tiny Man
(Fiction) I started painting again, after the trial ended. When I began my mandatory therapy program. I take the therapy seriously. It would be a waste of time if I didn't. But I can’t tell if Dr. Mayes does. For her, meeting with me seems like a chore. Like it's her sentence as well as … Continue reading Tiny Man
Ennui
Warning: This is long - 2,700 words. Ruminate on my past. Young-adult D.C. shuts down on Thanksgiving weekend. By young-adult, I mean over-twenty-one-but-not-yet-married-and-raising-families. As opposed to the literary genre that attracts readers aged eleven to seventeen. DC's young professionals, the yuppies, they all clear out. They go back to wherever they came from. They spend a … Continue reading Ennui
Drugs
Monday morning at 7:00AM: I’m sitting down to write. I’ve read the news, stretched my body, done my part in getting my kids on their school bus, and made myself presentable for work. It’s been a productive morning. Over the weekend, I seamlessly traded off between chores, exercise, reading, errands, volunteer work and spending time … Continue reading Drugs
Cold Laser
The whistle pig whiffed. The groundhog goofed. The woodchuck choked. Punxsutawney Phil botched his forecast. Six more weeks of winter? That was a fail. Saturday, February 20: sunny, breezy, seventy degrees. It looks like we’re going to get a week of this. This is not the winter weather Phil predicted. But I’m not complaining. Typically, … Continue reading Cold Laser
*Not* my Nobel Prize
Lifestyle blogger Charlotte Graham nominated me for the Getting to Know You Award. This sort of recognition is pretty far outside my comfort and interest zone, but I suppose I deserve it. I just got through crying about how I’m not getting enough WordPress love. Charlotte writes an active blog equally split between food, fashion, … Continue reading *Not* my Nobel Prize
Mind Control
Twenty-seven comments. Ninety-two likes. 3,475 followers. There are some pretty popular blogs out here. Not mine, but some of the others. Almost all of the others. I’m pissed, I’m pouting, perplexed. My fifteen-month old blog is gearing up to top one hundred followers. Sure, WordPress is littered with unattended blogs with tens of followers. But … Continue reading Mind Control
My moment in the sun(room)
January 8: Sunday, 4:00 PM. Susan is next to me on the couch, sleeping. Tommy (the cat) is sitting next to her, eyes closed, content. Roz (the other cat) is in the recliner, sound asleep. Sophie is in the next room, separated from us by a half wall, a large open window between the rooms. … Continue reading My moment in the sun(room)
The Hair Wiz
Self-reflection: I’m notoriously cheap. At least when it comes to buying stuff for myself. I’ll wear my clothes to the point of disintegration; dinner leftovers, no matter how unappealing, I throw together and take to work for my lunch (pasta mixed with rice and doused with Cholula?); and paying for a haircut strikes me as equivalent to throwing … Continue reading The Hair Wiz
Caffeinated
7:15 on Tuesday morning. Not a specific Tuesday morning, but any Tuesday morning. My laptop’s on my lap, and my coffee is next to me on a coaster. Printed on that coaster is “Hold me closer, Tony Danza.” It’s a gift from a friend who enjoyed my essay “Dewey Finn and the Dunder Chief” in … Continue reading Caffeinated
What’s in your Heart
Me: "I feel like I should be writing about the Trump presidency. I’m not doing my part." Susan: "You need to write what’s in your heart." Susan says something like this every day. It’s a bit like living with a Buddhist monk. Of course, she’s right. I don’t pick a topic and write about it, … Continue reading What’s in your Heart
Prindle
Prindle: I like that word. (Hint: Automatic transmission) From time to time, I write about my pickup truck. But not because I’m a “vehicle-guy.” I don’t lust after fancy cars, cool trucks, or the latest driving gadgets. For me, cars are simply a mechanism to get from one place to the next, period. And the … Continue reading Prindle
Day of Patriotism
As the world of reality TV crashes headlong into a dystopian future, President Trump calls for a Day of Patriotism. I’ve always thought that Independence Day, the good ol’ Fourth of July, was our long-standing day of patriotism, but apparently, it’s not enough. The motto of our future holiday? Love it or leave it! The … Continue reading Day of Patriotism
