Signs for deaf children, hand-painted Volvo’s, driving into Portland on a Friday night. By morning the rain had brought down the cherry blossom blooms like confetti, and the children across the street were young enough they could walk on walls… Read More ›

humor
The importance of first impressions and personal grooming
The top of my head, my scalp, felt dry like I imagined snake skin would feel, and I took to it with the perverse interest of dried glue. I was in the tub trying to relax. I had a high-grade… Read More ›
Discreet Music | “Brutal Ardour,” Jan. 22, 2018
So on a typical Monday here in the suburbs: Lily (12) starts seeing a therapist and texts me, “My therapist said I shouldn’t worry about finishing my homework tonight.” Charlotte (10) is caught moping over the kitchen island drawing another… Read More ›
A new path to the waterfall (for Brad)
Hi! If you’ve been reading my blog the past couple weeks you’ll know I’m working on completing v.3 of my memoir, through a 40-day exercise…I’m breaking from the logic with this post, that steps out of the time sequence to… Read More ›
Dead Souls | Field notes from the Pacific coast
This is a series of posts I started in late May and plan to continue for 40 days, with a goal of hitting 50,000 words by July 5 (now +25% complete!). It’s inspired by a three-day solo trek on the… Read More ›
Field notes from the Pacific coast | The influence of the tides on the streams
This is a series of posts I started in late May and plan to continue for 40 days, with a goal of hitting 50,000 words by July 5. It’s inspired by a three-day solo trek on the Washington coast, with… Read More ›
Ant prose, exterminator
Then the exterminator came and I liked him right away by the sound of his voice in the doorway talking to Ginger, crouching down, petting her, making some joke about the ants, but then he was all business: what have… Read More ›
‘Most likely you go your way and I’ll go mine’
We got up. Though it was a Saturday we were out of bed by 6. It was getting grayish out and I wanted to see it. There’s a soft fade in reverse, mornings here. There’s some quiet before the kids… Read More ›
Pipe cleaners and cats prose
The tree limbs had the same shape as pipe cleaners, the pipe cleaners Dawn got at Michaels for some school project but the cat co-opted them, figured they were toys designed for her, batting them around on the wood floor… Read More ›
We dropped the flyer for the middle school orchestra concert between the bleachers and left the chicken on the refrigerator
I got so mad at the chicken I roasted I couldn’t even eat it. I started working on it at 2 PM but it wasn’t ready, and out of the oven, until just after 6, right when Lily needed to… Read More ›