The acts of being and pretending are one and the same through an artful delusion of self. That form of delusion is how people with big dreams make them a reality: by not letting reality get in the way.

humor
The White Duck
Image taken without permission from writer Ross Murray I’d never seen one like it before and my instinct was to feel sorry for it because the other ducks either shunned the white duck or lashed out at it with their… Read More ›
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 ›
Postcards from a distance, “wish you weren’t here”
There is a pervasive sense of loss in all this, a strange peace that could be a kind of acceptance or another form of dismay. The frame of our worlds collapsing down, retracting.
Mondays don’t matter
It is the best day ever! A Monday, full-on sun, and I’m not working yet. I smoked a five-pound pork shoulder on the bone and weeded, planted flowers, just poured a beer and it’s only 3.
The self-care hair problem
This week we all went nuts.
Filling holes
The firepit, my bloody toe. We slept with all the windows open and it felt like camping. Four years later and we finally moved that mound of soil to the vegetable garden. It takes a global pandemic for us to… Read More ›
“And now, release the giant hornets!”
It’s always something, some locust or beetle or “killer bees.”
Like a picture print by Currier and Ives
Dad retreats to the den while the chicken marinates, lights a stick of incense, and helps the dog get a bone out of the basket.
Spirit is time-reversed to your body
I remembered the smoked turkey we had in the meat locker from Easter and started fantasizing about eating a leg, just standing in the kitchen and taking it by hand.