In the firefly warmth of a summer evening, I stand on the back deck looking for the moon. Backlighting the passing clouds, it hides behind three tall pines. It’s been months since I looked at the stars, though it’s felt like years. A plane slowly winks across the western sky. The bigness of it all…
Category: Life
Weekend Paralysis
Some weekends hit harder than others. This has been one of those harder-hitting weekends. It started on Saturday. It being a general malaise, a heaviness of spirit, a defeated and deflated feeling towards an overwhelming (yet small and inconsequential) world. When it hits, I feel it in the slump of my shoulders. I feel it…
Like Butter
I buy the same brand, and size, of “butter” every time. I buy the 45 oz. tub of Country Crock. Two pounds and thirteen ounces. I put butter in quotes because technically it’s a plant-based spread. There isn’t any particular reason I get this brand – it’s just what I’ve done for years. I suppose…
Swimming Uphill
If anyone wants to know how it’s going, I’m pretty sure I word vomited the phrase “swimming uphill” during a job interview tonight. I’m also pretty sure I may have sounded as coherent as a certain former president when I tried to explain my affinity for the arts (I was interviewing for an arts based…
Smoky Mountain Lemonade
Facebook “memories” reminded me that on this day six years ago, I hiked 15 or 16 miles in the Smoky Mountains. I was down in Tennessee on a long, somewhat spur of the moment road trip that I took to clear my head. I was calling it my blues, brews, and bbq trip. I spent…
How the Thoughts Progress
It’s Sunday and I’ve been up since 5:30 am. I didn’t sleep well. I woke up every hour or two throughout the night. When I get up, I make a pot of coffee. I make two waffles. I watch the sky lighten. I write about watching the sky. I read a poem or two. I…
Sunday with the Poets
Yesterday I bought two new books of poetry. That and hanging out at bars are two of my guilty pleasures – especially when I have few other distractions. I say guilty because I could use the money for other things. I say guilty because I could use the time for other things. Not too long…
TableDuck, ChickenTree, PillowPhone
I was up at 3:30 am this morning. I was up at 1:30 am as well, but fell back asleep. I might have been up one other time between 1:30 and 3:30 – it’s hard to say. I tossed and turned a little at 3:30 and read on my phone in the dark for a…
Commitment, Choice… (part 2: My Greased Flagpole)
There was an undertone in my post “commitment, choice, and obligation” that didn’t come through quite the way I wanted it to. In the abandoned paragraphs left crumpled up on a side-street document were concepts and thoughts that might have belonged in that post but I didn’t know how to work them in. At the…
Commitment, Choice, and Obligation
This past Sunday was Father’s Day. I talked on the phone with my stepdad and my dad and then with my daughter for a bit. While none of the calls felt forced, I don’t know that they would have happened were it not for the day. I talk to my mom once a week. I…
A Serious Lust for Shawarma
I came out on the back deck to enjoy the balmy evening temperatures and bird song. It’s almost summer and the warm weather makes me want to sit out and watch the stars, or drive roads long into the night, or have never-ending conversations that while away the dusky hours. I brought out to the…
Pheasants May Be Goats
The timing of the online sighting of my ex (the effects of which I chronicled here) got me wondering. Because our brains look for, or at least my brain does, connections and “coincidences” often where none exist, I was curious to see if our profiles matched up on the same day we had matched up…