I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life. -Virginia Woolf I was quick to correct my friend when he said something along the lines of “I get it, you’re just not satisfied here. You want something more.” Completely ignoring the “I get it part,” I did a few clarifying…
Category: Dear Diary
Still Just a Rat in a Cage
The prompt on the dating profile reads “Two Truths and a Lie.” My response is a set of statements based three different song lyrics – the funny one being “I don’t always say whoomp, but when I do, there it is.” Feeling bored with my profile, I recently changed one of the responses from a…
Tripping Over My Multitudes
All morning… or at least for the first twenty to thirty minutes of it, I’ve had the Ben Folds song, “You Don’t Know Me,” stuck in my head. Self-knowledge and this ridiculous attempt we make to know others is something I frequently explore yet seldom have anything new to contribute. Meh – “the clueless chump…
Limbo Doesn’t Last Forever
Yesterday, I wrote a long and whiny piece about having too many of the “wrong” options for how I spend my time. I was feeling bored and cooped up and I didn’t want to be productive. The cold, gray day didn’t help. Underpinning not wanting to be productive was this emotional shrug that asks, “what’s…
Attachment and Erasure
This morning I cleaned out some emails from my gmail account. I didn’t get rid of many, at least not compared to how many are sitting in my inbox. My goal was to get to under 100 unread emails. Most of the unread ones are poems that are delivered daily. I succeeded in getting it…
Power Outage
Strong winds passed through and the power was out for hours. Today I have food to throw out. There’s a type of anxiety that happens when storms hit. Once the power was out, I became aware of all the things I wanted to do that required power. Sure, it’s been days/weeks since I’ve submitted poems…
National Poetry Month 2023
Today begins National Poetry Month. Each year, during the month of April, I try to set some poetry goals. Usually I try to write a certain number of poems (and fall short) or submit to a certain number of magazines. I don’t think I’ve set reading goals, which I might do this year – I…
Essay Camp: Day Whatever
I’m staring at the flashing cursor and a blank screen. For all of my talk about this process by which writing elicits more writing and practice allows words to flow more easily, I still have days where that is not the case. I’ve been trying to write something about wonder and novelty. I’m also trying…
Essay Camp: Day Two
I woke up at 4:30 this morning. I’ve gotten up between 4:00 and 4:30 the last two days. Ever since the time change, I was struggling to get up at 5:05 (when my alarm goes off) or really any time before 6:00… Then something clicked, and now I’m up at 4:00-something. It might just be…
Essay Camp
Today is day one of Essay Camp. A few months ago I began following a writer on Twitter. I don’t know much about her other than she seemed cute and was living in Paris and was writing. She has something like 10,000 followers or more. On her substack, of which I’m a free (unpaid) subscriber,…
Daily Fifty-Two: Mar. 20, 2023
The black pickup truck with the rattling muffler rumbles into a parking spot in front of the dollar store. The decal on the back window reads, “this is what white privilege got me.” Trash bags and empty water jugs fill the pickup bed. The driver’s backwards cap boasts the stars and bars.
Goats on Van Ness
On the drive home from work today I passed a hillside where a few goats were grazing. Sometimes, the goats are out, and sometimes they’re not. I like seeing the goats. When I see them, I say (in my head) hello goats. Today, shortly after I passed, I tried to imagine the goats in the…