I started talking with Joe because I overheard him debating with the tr*mper sitting between us. When the tr*mper left, I leaned over and said, “you’re not wrong, this is some scary nazi shit that’s going on.” Joe seemed like a nice enough guy, and at least we agreed on politics. Joe is from Canada…
Category: Dear Diary
Sunday Witness
It wasn’t until I had walked away, after talking to the police, that I began to look over my shoulder to see if anyone was following me. Nobody was – though the mild sense of paranoia stuck with me for a few more blocks until I reached my destination, a sun-drenched bar in the Mission…
Spring Colors in SF
Without really looking at the ingredients, I ordered the “Armageddon.” Pastrami, avocado, cheddar, jalapeno, honey mustard. Slightly warm and wrapped in deli paper, I added it to my backpack where I had a hoodie, a thermos full of coffee, two books of poetry, and a notebook. Everything I needed for my walkabout. I spent this…
I’ll Deal with Later When It’s Later
This morning, while reading poetry and drinking coffee as a sunless white-gray light fills my apartment, I learn that the poet John Berryman committed suicide by jumping off of the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis. Though now we say died from suicide, because as one psychologist put it, we wouldn’t say committed cancer. I’ve heard…
Self-Reliance
At some point, which is another way
of saying now, your tireless indecision
of what to do with your life
becomes precisely what you have done with your life.
From “Self-Reliance” by Dobby Gibson
After fidgeting, and scrolling, and checking apps, and trying to decide how to spend my evening, I settled on…
Episode 17: Not a Good Fit
Above the bar, the paper sign yellowed with age read, “Reality is an illusion that occurs due to the lack of alcohol.” The quote is from the vaudeville comedian and actor, W.C. Fields. The bar, Specs’, is a well-known haunt in the North Beach part of town. It’s often associated with its beatnik neighbors across…
Testing Openness to Change
In one of those Proustian moments, I read the word windmill in a poem and was lost to the past. I drifted back to my first trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi. I had gone there with a woman I was dating, and where we stayed, a place with shacks and small grain silos converted into rooms…
S.O.B. I Love Live Shows
Over the weekend, I went to a concert. I had a decent seat in the front row of the loge. For the duration of the opening act and much of the main act, there was only one other person in my row – another guy, about my age, and like me, drinking a tall IPA….
Mornings Like This
This morning, Saturday morning, sunlight filters through the leaves of the magnolia tree outside of my living room window. Sitting on my sofa with my legs propped up on a makeshift ottoman (a throw pillow on top of a hard, square storage cabinet), I’m awash in a mix of feelings: guilt for not dedicating myself…
Musings From an Early January Morning
Scrolling through abandoned drafts, I came across this: This morning I was up early. I had set the alarm for 5am. I woke up a little after 4, briefly considered getting up, then decided to maximize those last 4o minutes with sleep – which felt good but not good enough. I didn’t want to be…
February – Trying to Do Better
January, that month in which people resolve to be better… that month in which people cleanse their bodies of alcohol, and start working out, and make lots of promises, was, for me, a lost month. I was sick twice – or maybe it was just once with two bouts. I barely exercised. I spent way…
In Search of a Good Beginning
Is my attention on loving,
or is my attention on
who isn’t loving me?
-From “Wellness Check” by Andrea Gibson
Sometimes, I have to remind myself to refocus my attention. The fragment from Gibson’s poem helps with that. Sometimes, I have to remind myself to loosen my ego’s grip on…