Say you promise to be at your desk in the evenings, from seven to nine. It waits, it watches. If you are reliably there, it begins to show itself – soon it begins to arrive when you do. But if you are only there sometimes and are frequently late or inattentive, it will appear fleetingly,…
Category: Relationships
Thoughts and Readings on Being in a Healthy Relationship
Lost and Found
I am embarrassingly late to the podcast craze. Enough so that I think it may have peaked and started to fizzle a few years ago. I hadn’t ever listened to one until a few months ago when I started listening to Hidden Brain. I don’t know, I think I felt somewhat above them – a…
Choice, Autonomy, the Self, and Others
I had a dream that I kept waking from and coming back to – or at least I felt like I kept coming back to. I was involved with someone. I couldn’t picture her, so it wasn’t anyone specific. She wanted to have cosmetic surgery (not corrective, per se) and I was stuck between wanting…
Slow Walk to the Edge of Admission
Friday Morning
During one of my earlier quiet phases – one of those one- or two-week unintentional hiatuses from writing when I wasn’t sure what the point was or just felt tired and confused
Purpose Like a Ham Sandwich
There’s no way I can get this right. Quite literally, no way. So instead, I get up and water the plants. That’s how I’m beginning a poem of the same title. It won’t go very far – so few of them do. Already, I’ve walked away from the poem like a half-eaten sandwich. From a…
Not Enough People and All that I Need
I say in lectures in 1996 that fifty percent or more of American marriages go bust because most of us no longer have extended families. When you marry somebody now, all you get is one person. I say when couples fight, it isn’t about money or sex or power. What they’re really saying is, “You’re…
One man in his time…
A long and lean woman stood naked in the doorway. The faint light from the kitchen outlined her silhouette casting the rest of her in shadow – almost spectral in the 3am night just before she came back to bed. Later, this same woman, someone I once dated, was with me as I submitted fake…
Sick Day
By 3pm on Wednesday, I knew it was coming. I could feel that soreness in my throat that walks a few steps ahead of its slacker cousins the stuffed up nose and groggy head. I was getting sick. Dammit. What started as “oh, I know this feeling…” steamrolled into certainty shortly after dinner. It was…
Dismissive, Independent, Avoidant Johnny and Sometimes Anxious Sue
I want to write about a guy I used to know. We sometimes ran into each other at one of the bars I frequented. We would talk or share stories. I wouldn’t say we were friends, but we were friendly. In fact, I think if we ever got to talking politics, I suspect we wouldn’t…
Failure to Launch
I started this post almost two weeks ago. It was cold then. I revisited it and revised it, the weather got warm, and now it’s cold again with snow on the ground and more on the way… During one of the revisions on a warmer day I wrote: In the predawn hours, the morning birds…
Cutting Carrots
I want what I want when I want it. In that regard, I’m a selfish (and normal) human being. I try to be mindful and keep that selfishness in check, but I am amazed at how often I slip back into the daily grind thinking that “the world is all about me and everyone is…
Skirting the Surface
Yesterday was tough. For a good part of the day, I had this empty, sinking feeling. It felt worse than the usual Sunday/Monday work anxiety… which shouldn’t have been much of an issue because I have the day off today (though I have a few work things I need to do). The day started off…