A piece of my grainy, sepia-toned, scraped knees, and grass-stained childhood died today (June 6, 2024). One of my best friends, Tim (he’s on the right and I’m on the left) passed away this morning. I saw the missed call from his wife (I was brushing my teeth). I went back to the bathroom. I…
Category: Dear Diary
Digital Curmudgeon
It’s hard not to feel as though our digital worlds are going to complete shit. A week or two ago, I tried to buy concert tickets through Ticketmaster. I selected my seats – reasonably good seats for $100/per ticket for a show I’d really like to see (Michael Kiwanuka). When I clicked purchase, I got…
Frivolous Pursuits?
It’s 8am. I woke up early. I’ve already finished reading a chapbook of poetry. I’ve already written three or four poems. This is a nice change of pace. Mentally, my wheels are spinning as I’m contemplating my tastes in and talent for poetry. What makes a poem good, or at least good to me? The…
A Cloak of Misery
It wasn’t that he liked being miserable.
He simply had grown used to wearing
a certain face, become comfortable
with his assortment of shrugs and sighs.
“His Music” – Stephen Dunn
It’s been a mixed few days…
A Touch of Euphoria
Near the end of my evening walk, I detour to the “corner bar” that sits in the middle of the block. When I come home, I want to love everyone and everything. I’m stealing that sentiment from the title of a poem “I Come Home Wanting to Touch Everyone” Of course, I come home to…
Stop Following Me
Not long ago, I logged into my healthcare account to see what I needed to do to get a routine check up, an eye exam, and maybe start the process of getting my shoulder looked at. I’ve been putting these things off. Being the optimist that I am, I had expected to be employed by…
Making It Up As I Go
In my more writerly or creative moods, lots of different things serve as jumping off points for mental exploration. Among the things I’d like to get better at are: turning narrative into poetry, and allowing myself the freedom to play more frequently with words, stories, fact, and fiction. This morning I read the poem “At…
When the Morning Fog Is More than Morning Fog
It’s Monday morning. It’s gray. Even though it’s only mid-May, I might be getting a taste of San Francisco’s famous June gloom. The fog, Karl, has made his presence felt these past few days. On Saturday, on a ferry ride from Tiburon, the fog could be seen pouring over the hills on Angel Island. It…
Make ’em Cry
I recently watched a TikTok video that one of my Facebook friends had shared. I trust this person because they share good poems and feel-good stories as well as the occasional lefty power-to-the-people sort of stuff. The TikTok video contained snippets from a documentary Educating Yorkshire mixed together with viewer reactions to the documentary. The…
May 4th Ramblings
I wrote a note on my phone at 3:30 am. I initially woke up at around 2am (a touch of heartburn from a late-for-me dinner of tacos with more jalapenos than I needed and a slice of frozen pizza). I clearly live a very unsupervised life. When I woke at 2, the sound of the…
Ain’t What It Used to Be
I guess I was expecting more. More people, more coverage, a more coherent message. Yesterday, I walked downtown to check out one of the protests. In addition to it being May Day, yesterday was International Workers’ Day. While the pre-protest coverage in the local news indicated that many of the marches would be focused on…
Running Out of Space
The email from Google tells me that I’m almost out of storage. When I run out of storage, I won’t be able to receive new emails. The quick solution to this problem, the solution I’ll employ, is to delete some videos (mostly concerts that I’ve gone to). I have them saved elsewhere – at least…