I conditioned the air because it was clammy inside and we couldn’t open the windows. The ducks were still at the lake and in the morning everything looked ghostly with that mixture of fog and smoke. I slapped my chest… Read More ›
writing
Saved by old times
Like a Greek myth that punishes its subject to suffer the daily pattern of futility as recompense for some trespass with the gods, so it was: not the recurring monotony of the pandemic but instead just getting our kids to… Read More ›
The long view
Gary came for dinner and we forgot what day it was but remembered again as we listened to him tell the story of that morning in September he went to work at the New York Times building in Manhattan.
Weird scenes inside the gold mines
The Jupiter’s Beard is the last to bloom, pale pink with bees picking pollen from its bush. The garden out front is on its last legs, the lavender deep purple. On the hillsides back in Germany they’d be out with… Read More ›
Dream sequence, prayer
In that dream I was walking out of an airport trying to figure out where I’d parked. There were vague signs showing names of gates and parking lots but soon it all got confused and I realized I didn’t know… Read More ›
You can never quarantine the past
Labor Day came and went, hot easterly winds. The tell-tale crunch of leaves. In mid September we drove to that strange town in the French mountains, Saint-Pierre des Champs. We rented a Eurovan and I was the only one who… Read More ›
Damn good address for a rat
But for the crows it’s quiet on my walk to the lake. The clouds make it glum with the lawns going brown and the leaves coming down. I jump the gun with fall, my favorite season (the first half). In… Read More ›
Life’s rich pageant
For two weeks I ate the same sandwich from the 5 lb butt I smoked, pulled pork with pickles. Then I started ordering albums off Amazon without keeping track, and every day it was like Christmas as I backfilled my… Read More ›
Downgraded to a tropical depression
The drive to the coast takes five hours from Seattle with three cities in between: Tacoma, Olympia, and Aberdeen. From Aberdeen it’s another two hours to the ocean, featureless and hard to keep awake. I’ve gotten better about what music… Read More ›
Tow-away zone
A mess on the ground that looks like a witch’s wig, but it’s a crow. A dead crow. I’m superstitious enough it’s a sign, and sure enough…cops around the corner with a tow truck about to mount a Range Rover…. Read More ›
