blog
Been blogging off and on here since 2007. I say I'll try and publish this stuff, but we all know how that goes.
2022
- Oh, hi there. A little after 8:15pm on August 4th, 2022 (which, at the time of writing translates to "last Thursd
- Riding The Last Wave I woke to the muffled screech of seagulls, fighting over a morsel on the hotel balcony. I woke on a
- Take Shelter L appeared in the kitchen door as I was doing dishes, talking on the phone. I looked over, and she
- Fenced My run took me downstream yesterday. From the front door it's a diagonal line to the river. Across
2017
- 30,000 Feet I’m flying west, Boston to Portland. This isn’t my first evening flight along this route, but for s
- And Again Sunlight from skylight hits the edge of a pillow before another cloud passes and the pillow returns
- Evening Traffic A few hours ago, when I pulled this old reading chair out on to the deck, a family of deer was graz
- In Other Words Yesterday, while reading a slim book of poetry on my lunch break, I happened upon a line that I’ve
- From the Corner Sol, construction contractor, motorcycle rider, wearer of thick bifocals and a loose pony tail, is
- Cuimhnigh For a bar at midnight on St. Paddy’s Day, the scene is pretty tame. A couple skinny guys in leather
- On Momentum and Mud Zuzu, our dog, has mud up her nose. The mud is irritating. She is facing the bookshelf, ears cocked
- Borderless We’re up early or the dog is anyways, just sitting there, staring up, making these piercing little
- Around Midnight Around midnight the Mass Pike begins to swim across our windshield, glowing globs of light that sli
- The Pretzel Factory I guess what I’m saying here is that there’s the big-picture kind of profundity - the motivational
- Just Imagine “Just imagine” she said, pressing both thumbs to the center of the screen and pulling them slowly a
2016
- Torch Raised as I was, no small amount of shame bubbles up when I admit to you that music - or the habit
- Before. During. After. BEFORE Sanju hasn't told me where we're going, but he's taking the preparation very seriously. I su
- The Third Thing Reading. Ideally, reading happens in a vacuum; a safe place to leave your body behind. You find som
- Short Days While walking up the stairs yesterday, I paused by the landing window to watch a squirrel, bounding
- New Charts While driving down to Boston this past weekend, I listened to David McCullough read from The Wright
- Ragdoll I was in the back seat, aged perhaps 10, and dad was driving. I don't remember where we were headed
- Today’s Friday A few weeks ago, after several quiet minutes of willing myself to think a typable thought, I gave u
2015
2014
- Assignment : Contextualism I'm taking a couple classes over at Loyola's writing center this fall - fiction and creative nonfic
- Assignment : Old House I'm taking a couple classes over at Loyola's writing center this fall - fiction and creative nonfic
- Assignment : Lemon Bar I'm taking a couple classes over at Loyola's writing center this fall - fiction and creative nonfic
- Descriptive as Hell (You won't be surprised to find that I was reading Catcher in the Rye about the time this was writt
- Fragments : Invisible Things This is from a stack of partially finished blog entries that, after years of collecting dust, I do
- Fragments : Joe This is from a stack of partially finished blog entries that, after years of collecting dust, I do
- Fragments : TBT This is from a stack of partially finished blog entries that, after years of collecting dust, I do
2013
- Thrum It is five in the morning on Christmas Day. The windows beside my bed are dark but for their frames
- Pilgrim Midnight, and Moo is restless. Occasional adjustment whines locate her somewhere out in the darknes
- Vortex Juice 1. "Loja! Loja! Loja!" Only two nights after arriving in Zamora, we are leaving Zamora. "Venga LO
- Down on the Corner Our room is pink. Management might argue salmon. The ceiling is cushioned, and features a scalloped
- The Chipped Dipper When the ashen clouds that crept in around lunchtime give way to evening thunder and patterned pudd
- King Size "Dollars! Wow. Really. Man." It should give you some sense of how prepared we were for this trip t
- Zen, Then Eh, fate happens. I was walking home in the rain a few weeks ago, and noticed, as I rounded the cor
- Tivity Harvard Square, Cambridge - It's early and cool and light is coming in at just the right angle to b
2012
- Half Mast St. Louis, MO - "Oh it’s absolutely us versus them out there. I mean that’s not ideal but we drive
- phone notes, first night ¶ Progress through the dark scrub of upstate Maryland at midnight. Breadcrumb streetlights stretch
- Whoosh! The lawn out in front of the Cambridge library is wide and deep and striped with evening light that
2011
- Goodbye Hitch The three writers I most admire are now all dead; two through suicide and one through a life so dra
- We’ll See When unpacking after a move, I think people tend to pull out a favorite object first. A mezuzah, a
- Lisboa Somewhere south of Ourém Francesco nods off, his head rolling back between powder blue seats and th
- The Purple Pad No. 1 | Tanga Thirty two days ago, five thousand feet above the ground in a teensy aluminum tube held aloft by tw
- Notes from an Airport I'm sitting in the corner of an airport bar sipping beer and facing the ADDIS ABABA DUTY FREE SHOP,
- All Politics Minneapolis - The Cake Eater Cafe. Two twentysomething guys are sitting across the room from me. Ab
- Ice vs Nice I'm in Minneapolis again. And it's cold again, but - again - nobody here seems to notice. The ther
- Linen Lampshades East Village, NYC - After four weeks of wandering through one of the most famous neighborhoods on e
2010
- Yard Sale Nunu Chocolate, Brooklyn – The woman who just came in is in her fifties. She sports shiny black le
- Brain Stem The following is a list of observations muttered to no one in particular by the part of my consciou
- My Superpowers A brief list: I can, from the freshly sneaker-scraped 3 pointer groove on our driveway, make a hook
- A Good Wednesday I was still stationed in front of the computer at noon, dressed in the same t-shirt and underwear t
- Angsty Scrawl For some reason, I have this long held belief that writing frequently will cause me to think more c
- Crickets : The Low Anthem is On to Something
- Week One The first week of living somewhere new is roughly the same just about anywhere you (I) go. Day one
- Just About Right About fifteen minutes in to my drive up from Boston yesterday I realized that I was going to spend
- The Right Spoon Comments m. "...a home, a single place where all the physical evidence of your history exists, wher
- Awe you know what that’s like? its like closing up the Eggars storybook and feeling vaguely disappointe
2009
- My Tribe Peets Coffee & Tea. At five, this place was a noisy hive of caffeine addicts, shoving their way tow
- One More Arrival As always, Anna managed to wrangle a beautiful welcome out of New York. Within three hours of landi
- Soapbox Wherein the author reveals his true nature to be that of an egomaniacal hermit who created this ove
- A Lazy Sunday It was a slow Sunday. I woke up at ten, squinted at the window long enough to confirm suspicions of
- Up By One Mike dropped me off just near the gas station at the corner of Massetana Romana and Cassia Sud last
- From Time to Time After having a very productive morning, my day fell to bits when I realized that next week is SIS's
- Death by One-Ply Dear They, You have made rocket ships that land on Mars. You have made computers that will soon tak
- Goodbye Eats Leaving hurts. Until that first bite of homemade waffle on Sunday morning, my progress from west to
- Watch. Listen. Leave. Backspace. When we walked in, the barista was up on an A-frame next to the stage, tying prayer flag
- Sticky There are eight power outlets to be had at Powell's coffee shop, and today the only free one is loc
- I’ll Chew That Gum I'm not much of a dancer. It's no secret. In fact, most of the people who are reading this have see
- Blink. Blink. The following is a word-for-word transcript of my thought process at 7:09 this morning while lying
- The 8 If you pick up the 8 JACKSON bus on Third and Pine downtown - you won't wait long, fifteen minutes
2008
- Lapse I'm not sure why, but over the past few days my brain has decided to shut off mid-sentence. Not whe
- Drink Mix Currently, my office time is evenly divided between home and the two independent coffee shops near
- Utterly Undone Hark! The herald angel is shrieking in tongues again! A broken half bottle held high, stabbing wild
- Click-a-holic Confessional Had I been twenty-four years old forty years ago, my life might have been in real danger of moving
- Saturday, Distracted This morning I arrived at the office will all SORTS of good intentions. I was going to get a weeks
- I’m Movin’ Across In This World I need a desk.... and maybe some sheets. I can't remember the last time I lived in place that had t
- Breathe In! Quiet, cold and drippy. These may not be the most common words associated with Valentines Day, but
2007
- You Couldn’t Make This Up If You Tried It just isn't one of those things you think about. Nobody warns you about situations like these. Yo
- I Can Fit You In Next To Hitler, Will That Work? Every so often, when the day runs a little long, when lunatic Sienese driving doesn't quite get you
- On Mystery Tubes I forgot to plug my washing machine's mystery tube in to the bidet. In retrospect, I was relatively
- On Music Music journalism. It's weird worried upside-down world these days, and one hell of a leap from the
- Earplugs in Tuscany It's a quiet Sunday afternoon, and out my window you can see the urban grid of Siena dissolving in