Somehow one screen wasn’t enough. You could never take it all in. The volume of pleasure, the entertainment was more than we could consume but somehow never enough. It rushed in through the windows like a car gone off a… Read More ›
identity
The LinkedIn post I didn’t post on LinkedIn
David Alfe was twice my age when he went to work for me at the Starbucks store on South Street, Philadelphia. He had run restaurants and was a lot more qualified than me to manage the store but he was… Read More ›
Lessons in recovery
This is how the bargaining works, you get drawn back into the maze. And it is a kind of madness to feel like you don’t have control over your own mind. If the labyrinth metaphor works for you, consider how the walls are formed and why.
The first person
If the phone is the new mask of Greek theater, a personō for us to sound through, perhaps our kids just understand better than we do how to really use it. Because as Bowie showed us, the self is a kind of fiction.
We were here
Books are one of the few things we can touch and handle in an intimate way and then share with strangers when we’re done.
The weight of all we felt
This day could be drawn in pencil it’s so drab. The roads are wet with rain and the leaves are down, the birch with their spindly arms and dragon eyes, a tangle of dead leaves, a lone bird…this feeling of… Read More ›
Magna come loudly, Bill
I guess the window on William closed a long time ago, I’ve just gone by Bill. Been called Billy, but only to distinguish myself from the other Bills. A littler Bill, that Billy: a smaller version of his dad. Though… Read More ›
The dismemberment plan
The first thing I had to do was quit drinking. I’d left my job, moved to Europe and stopped doing yoga. There was no congruence between doing yoga and getting drunk. One was a union of body and mind, the… Read More ›
Winter’s Playground
We are in Michael’s boyfriend’s apartment getting into Michael’s boyfriend’s bag. Michael is gay before anyone else in Pittsburgh. He wears scarves and earrings and looks beautiful but doesn’t act like a priss. People talk behind his back but he doesn’t care because he’s not insecure, it’s just who he is.
Laughing in tune
Those petty, pernicious forms of hatred were woven into the fabric of our upbringing. Though my parents did their best to undo it we learned cruelty early on, it was in our DNA, and there was always someone to make fun of or put down to make us feel more powerful.
Bill Pearse 