I opened Facebook Messenger to this message: You look like a Pedophile. This was the final straw, and fortunately the final message during a hectic twenty-four hours selling my car. Three years ago, when our daughter Sophie moved off the University of Vermont campus, Susan and I realized she needed a car to do those … Continue reading Clown!
Parenting
The Penalty of Today’s World
Superintendent Johnson sat at a large wooden desk. In his suit and tie and pocket square he looked like a fat-cat politician or maybe a bank president, not a school administrator. He took a slow swallow from his University of Central Florida coffee mug and carefully centered it on a mirrored coaster to his side. … Continue reading The Penalty of Today’s World
Heirloom
To call it a family heirloom might be overreach, but undeniably, its history was cool. Six kids wore the onesie for a month or two over fourteen years at the end of the last millennium. Children grow so fast in those early days, what fit last week is often stretched this week for one final … Continue reading Heirloom
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
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
The Break Down
“Dad, why don’t we call a friend?” Broken down on a country road… after dark… eighteen degrees, windy. Susan took the ‘good’ car, we took the pickup. A 1995 Dodge Dakota. It’s fun to drive around town, but you don’t want to rely on it—on a country road, after dark, when it’s really cold. “Dad, … Continue reading The Break Down
Fat Jesus
“Thanks for that image, Jeff. All afternoon I’ve been envisioning a Buddha jiggling and bouncing down a wooded trail.” This is a comment I got on a recent blog post about trail running. In this post, I included the popular Buddhist quote ‘Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.’ This response surprised me. First off, I … Continue reading Fat Jesus
Hi, I’m Jeff
“Hi, I'm Jeff.” Kathy looks somewhat annoyed: “Hi, I'm Kathy. We’ve known each other for three years.” Kathy has huge hair. A tangled mass, a defining feature. If an artist drew a caricature of Kathy, she would have a tiny face orbited by a universe of hair. On this day, it’s pulled back into a … Continue reading Hi, I’m Jeff
The Other Stuff 