For a significant part of my morning, I fell down the rabbit hole of cleaning out old emails and filing away others. My Gmail account has over 11k emails in it. It was over 12k when I started (I deleted or moved over 500). I was looking for an email from my job search back…
Fall Approaches: Phone Dump
For the past two weeks, I’ve been checked out. I’ve done very little reading or writing and very little job searching. I’ve taken fewer city walks and spent fewer hours on sun-drenched benches by the water. Instead, I went nocturnal. I’ve spent my days inside wasting time on my computer. I’ve spent my nights out…
Lacks Inner Resources
In the middle of reading some poems by one of my favorite poets, Stephen Dunn, I pause to think about the book as though I might have the skill or ambition to comment on it. I possess neither. I bought the book a few weeks ago when my father and I visited City Lights on…
It’s Raining Dogs
It’s overcast. We have plenty of gray days, but this morning, the clouds look like rain clouds. I feel as though I’m being given permission to stay in, to drink coffee slowly, to read or take a nap or write or just stare out the window. I do those things on nice days too, but…
Often, I Forget the Details…
From Dean Young’s poem “Flamenco,” a poem I had dog-eared, I underlined and asterisked the line, “a collection of eternal accidents.” It’s an interesting way to think of life, a series of accidents, most of which are forgotten but no less consequential. Eternal – what followed the accident was, necessarily, the rest of life. I…
Done Got Old: The Big Five-Oh
August 12, 2024 At 7am, it’s cool and gray outside – the temperatures are in the low fifties (I feel like there’s an age joke in there somewhere). Today is my birthday. Today I turn 50. The plan for the day is a late breakfast with my dad, hang around a bit, and then Uber…
This Golden Sun Shines for Me
I’ve been living in San Francisco for nine months – ten if you count the three weeks I lived in a hotel. Aside from a deep appreciation for the beauty and character of this city, I don’t have much to show for my ten months here: no girlfriend, no job, no newly published poems, stories,…
How It Used to Be
The poem about desire (titled “Desire”) begins, “I remember how it used to be.” I rejected the author’s invitation. I stopped there at the first line. I opened my notebook and wrote, “Do you remember how it used to be?” My own small ode to how we lose desire – the couple that starts “hot…
A Little Catch Up
There’s a ketchup packet on the bottom shelf of my fridge – the solid, plastic shelf above the crisper drawers where I would store fruits and vegetables if I had fruits and vegetables. There was a time in US bureaucratic history and policy when the USDA was considering classifying ketchup and pickle relish as vegetables…
Looking for the Familiar
It’s not yet 8am. The foghorn from the bridge sounds every 18 seconds. This has been going on since sometime yesterday. The morning sun has broken through. It lights my apartment. It warms the left side of my face and neck as I sit on the sofa editing poems I’ve written but am not happy…
Two Wolves in the Morning
The two wolves snarling and nipping at each other this morning are: spontaneity and being methodical. I’m reading a book about breathing. It’s called Breath by James Nestor. A friend recommended it while we were hiking and I was getting my ass kicked on the climb. I had said something about how when I run,…
Wellness Check
It’s 4am. Tuesday. I woke up about half an hour ago and couldn’t fall back asleep. The apartment is chilly. The outside temperature is in the mid-fifties. I’ve had the windows open for several weeks – maybe months. Ten minutes later, I’ve already had my waffles. I’ve moved from my square, dark wood bistro table…