Tics: Involuntary movements and vocalizations… I sit at my desk and grit my teeth—first my molars, they squeak with friction, then my eye teeth, left then right. I press outward with my bottom teeth, until I feel movement. When I eat my apple, my jaw locks. It audibly snaps with every bite. I probe the … Continue reading Tourette
Creative Nonfiction
Hello?
When he spoke, the hairs on my neck stood on end. Clichéd, sure, but it happened. My blood ran cold, my heart stopped, I jumped out of my skin. Ok, those things didn’t happen, but I tell you, I was scared. My boss warned me the school was haunted. I already knew. I felt it … Continue reading Hello?
Tonight wild heights we’ll hit
My hearing sucks. My long slide into a muffled world started decades ago. Early on, my propensity to turn up the TV volume annoyed my family. My endless stream of misheard words and missed statements frustrated my coworkers. “WHAT?” Hearing loss isn’t linear. Some frequencies fade faster than others. Like most people, I first lost … Continue reading Tonight wild heights we’ll hit
Bricks
They gathered outside the Ugly Mug, I saw them when I drove by—smiling, laughing, relaxed. Radiating a glow only possible after a long run on a cool morning. Content. Gettysburg has three coffee shops, the good one, the popular one and Starbucks. I use Starbucks, or I did before the pandemic. I broke that habit; … Continue reading Bricks
Rage/Recovery
Warning: Language Monkey Gone to Heaven—if you know a Pixies song, this is probably it. It’s the only one I ever heard on the radio. Or maybe Where is My Mind?—the musical backdrop to Tyler Durden’s anarchist Project Mayhem explosions at the end of the movie Fight Club. You might know these, but not You … Continue reading Rage/Recovery
Book Launch
In January, I posted The Routine, a flash piece illustrating my teenage struggle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I initially wrote it a few years ago, but in January I gave it a heavy edit and submitted it to Through the Looking Glass: Reflecting on Madness and Chaos Within, an anthology of short nonfiction and poetry … Continue reading Book Launch
Fill my Eyes with that Double Vision
Fill my eyes with that double vision. Do you know this lyric? It’s from Foreigner’s 1978 hit song, Double Vision. Christmas time, 1978, I sat at the tail-end of my first relationship. Sue Witt and I hooked up at my high school homecoming rally and walked home together. For the next three months, we toyed … Continue reading Fill my Eyes with that Double Vision
We had Such a Brainiac-Amour *
* Why write a blog post no one wants to read about a song no one wants to hear? I love American music. I also love British rock from the late seventies and early eighties. In fact, at that time—the late seventies and early eighties—I graffitied my high school and then college desks by drawing … Continue reading We had Such a Brainiac-Amour *
Boiled Frog
America is baking. As temperate areas push well into triple digits this week, the media reminds us that global heating is real. Just as real as it was five years ago, when I wrote this essay. After work today, I went for a walk. It's too hot to run, too hot to bike, kind of … Continue reading Boiled Frog
Brood X
The entomologists call them Brood X—the United States' east coast seventeen-year cicadas. The name appeals to me, reminiscent of a late-seventies punk band. Each generation emerges from deep underground, molts, mates, lays eggs and then dies. Their path to sexual maturity extending longer than even humans. Their bizarre life-span leaves them without an obvious predator. … Continue reading Brood X
Queen of the Coast
Queen of the Coast by Laura Cantrell, so beautiful it makes me ache. Susan often talks about the divine. Specifically, musicians being touched by it… the divine. Her favorite example is the Beatles—really just John and George. I need to think about that, my favorite Beatles song is Don’t Pass Me By, written and sung … Continue reading Queen of the Coast
The Wait
Every conversation is pretty much the same. “Mao?” *“Mao.” “Meow?”“Meow.” “Mew?”“Mew.” This goes on as long as I want. Tommy loves to talk. Typically, water is involved. He sits on the vanity at the edge of the sink, neck extended like a duck or a goose and rubs his head on the faucet, waiting for … Continue reading The Wait
Meditation
Jeff Cann, Meditation Practitioner. Cool title, maybe I should print business cards. I toyed with calling myself a meditator—Jeff Cann, Meditator—but I don’t like how it sounds. And who gets to decide which words end with or versus er? We’ve got bakers, renters, fighters and even practitioners. But then we’ve got meditators, mediators and aviators. … Continue reading Meditation
One Hit
Rosemerry wrote of regret. A taste of winning… once. Fleeting fame and a lifelong slide. One hit wonder. Wonder how my life turned out without that one big hit. Rosemerry wrote about choices. Decisions and consequences. Success or failure, which is worse? Sip the elixir now, it dries to sawdust in your throat. Rosemerry wrote … Continue reading One Hit
Spring Fever
I sneaked (snuck?) out of work for a half hour today. Snuck/sneaked might not be the right word—I walked out the front door. And it was noon, so probably everyone thought I was grabbing lunch. Truthfully, I doubt anyone even noticed. But I rarely leave my building during the day. Every time I do, I … Continue reading Spring Fever
Dusting
I woke up to a dusting. It must have snowed for fifteen minutes last night. A transparent white cover on the dirt patch in my backyard, an area we reseeded last fall, too late to grow grass, a project waiting for spring. And a frosting of snow running the length of a fallen tree, a … Continue reading Dusting
On/Off Button
I wrote about this before, back when this blog was new. My first post here, the last thing I wrote for my book. Hi, I’m Jeff. “Wow, you sure have a lot of problems!” This was my former boss. She spoke with exclamation points. She ticked them off on her fingers: “Vision! Hearing! Tourettes! Face-blindness?” … Continue reading On/Off Button
Tommy & Me at 3:53
Seven, eight, lay them straight. Remember this nursery rhyme? Old-school, maybe no one under fifty-five has heard it. I didn’t until I started kindergarten in 1967. I lived in a progressive household. We laid them straight, gay, crooked or in a circle. Yes, this is the nonsense that ran through my brain at three-thirty this … Continue reading Tommy & Me at 3:53
Routine
It’s a simple mechanism, the garage door lock. A spring-loaded bolt pushed through a slot in a metal rail—the rail the garage door rolls along as it’s opened or closed. It’s like a deadbolt on the front door. Binary, locked/unlocked, no gray area. A lever releases the lock. The bolt springs back, unlocking the door. … Continue reading Routine
Christmas Wrapping
Coy and coquette, those words pop into my mind when I remember the song I Know What Boys Like by the Waitresses. A one hit wonder, their claim to fame. A flame, a fizzle. It came out during my second year of college. An instant campus hit, I recall Meagan Heath, pretty, confident, unattainable, but … Continue reading Christmas Wrapping
