In the den at night with the flue to the gas fire open it’s so drafty it feels like we’re outside, and Dawn and I wrap ourselves in blankets, play vinyl, and it’s a pain to get up and have… Read More ›
Technology
God from the machine
Muted colors on the drive in to work, highs in the low 50s. The temporary workers in their fluorescent body suits setting up the construction site for the day, wincing in the rain. Me as a temp worker with a… Read More ›
Portrait of a subject reduced to a thread
The ticking of the clock, the rain drops, the same sound of the wood burning when it pops. There’s no sound like that on digital clocks. And at the traffic light we converge for a time: everyone looking down, in… Read More ›
The intensely overstimulated, middle-aged (not so young) American
Just having my mornings where I don’t have to jump from the bed to the shower and can put on whatever clothes I left by the bed the night before and lie on the sofa awhile waking up, doing whatever,… Read More ›
Building 37
I’ve now contracted at Microsoft for six months. Today for the first time I had a meeting in a different building. The buildings are numbered; I just had the number but didn’t bother to look up exactly where it was,… Read More ›
‘Jesus cleanse’ this:
I tried to get into bed to read, the dog was there. I had my phone and Bluetooth speaker. My friend Mike was texting me about his speakers, sending photos, telling me what he was listening to. I got an… Read More ›
Someone called ‘The Necromancer’ is on the line, and they say it’s really important
The smartphone moved with him from room to room as a torch in a dark and threatening castle, everything outside its light potentially harmful. And in public places where people otherwise had the chance to connect now they didn’t, they… Read More ›
All the walls are fake
Lily got a 4.0 grade point average her first trimester in middle school, Student of the Month award, two certificates, did a pirouette as she announced it, shook her hips, raised one foot over her head in a yoga pose… Read More ›
Once more to elsewhere (“are you paying attention?”)
All the details of the world when you’re really in it. The guy at the gas station wheeling in the delivery, the small, waking patterns along the seam of morning, how the mind spins and shakes and follows whatever flickers… Read More ›
Early autumn mixer
In the morning the moon was a hook and we sat under it going down. Lily and I went birthday shopping for Charlotte intent on a guitar and a bake set but came out with a $120 giraffe. No one… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 