In that dream where I was drinking I could smell it, juicy red wine, and the smell was so real it’s like a part of me was actually drinking again and another part was thinking stop! but my whole face… Read More ›
Addiction
User’s sanctum
The silhouettes of the horses in the pre-dawn dark look two dimensional. They move at the same pace as me along the lodge pole fencing at the horse farms. Some distant frogs croaking and the din of morning traffic; it’s… Read More ›
Song for Sober October
I felt so good. Chalk it up to the coffee or a good night’s sleep or just the contentment from sitting alone in the dark by the radio with a candle and a blanket in the morning in fall. Messaging… Read More ›
The A8 to Karlsruhe
Outside it was so cold I could see my breath, with frost on the grass and all the trees looking shriveled. I waited until just before sunrise to climb the Himmelsleiter and that made the steep hillsides look pink-gold. Evenly… Read More ›
On mouse traps and handcuffs
I couldn’t make sense of the mouse trap; it was a catch and release model. Two doors on either side of the cage with what looked like a metal toothpick to spear a piece of cheese, or something you’d use… Read More ›
Flashing lights, violence, sexual content, some profanity
I rewatched the 1985 Terry Gilliam film Brazil. It’s one of many movies I’d already seen but in the time I was drinking so it was like seeing it for the first time. I knew it was dystopic and probably… Read More ›
You know better
It took about two weeks and 12 blog posts before I started feeling good again. I got back to the park and they still had signs up about cougars, probably would ad infinitum. I realized the bear spray made a… Read More ›
The continuing story of Bungalow Bill
Rummage around long enough in the grab-bag of memories and you’ll find something strange. This one, a party in college where everyone was in costumes and on LSD: a guy named Don with a sheet of acid dressed like Captain… Read More ›
The last time you tried to quit
You will go much further than you ever thought before you stop. You will even think I should quit, and yet you will keep going. You will do it time and again, and then you will say enough, you’ll stop… Read More ›
The devil’s back side
Here was that spot I’d come to that day in the forest it was snowing. I’d been wanting to find this spot but the trails splinter off and I never look at the maps, I just splice the sections together… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 