I don’t know why I have to drink beer when I brown beef but I just do. Maybe so I’m doing something other than drinking. I went back to my notes from Friday morning on Cougar Mountain with the dog,… Read More ›
humor
Portrait of a house cat eating a bird one Thursday
Charlotte and I sat at the breakfast nook eating frozen pizza and watching our cat Roxy eat a bird. I watched Charlotte watching Roxy for a few bites before she realized what Roxy was eating and was glad when she… Read More ›
The Larry Dugan complex
There were probably a dozen boys packed into that air-conditioned room at Kyle Gardo’s house in the early ’80s, the first time I saw porn, a lot of hair onscreen and squishing sounds, all of us rapt and speechless; it… Read More ›
“Jimi thing”: last day on Whidbey Island, spring break ’17
The last morning I went down to the whale-watching bench to say goodbye and there were no sounds on a Saturday but the birds, a crow clicking on a totem pole, elderly folks shuffling up the sidewalks, bearded construction guys… Read More ›
32/30, more like 34
The jeans were getting harder to get into and the beers harder to get out of. The beers were getting easier to get into and the jeans to get out of. The reclining chair was bent and sagged but I pulled… Read More ›
A stream of consciousness, passing through April
We felt it winding down, that April. Who gets to be in Europe for nine months like that? I had no business complaining about having to go, it was time. It was starting to leaf out on the trees along… 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 ›
Ant prose, baiting strategies
We got an ant problem. The landscapers cleaned up all the beds outside and must have kicked up a colony. It started benign enough, one here, one there, but then they started crawling up the walls and in my beard… Read More ›
‘That you’re tired of yourself and all of your creations’
I hung the hammock out back on the ponderosas, tried to rest but couldn’t, drove to West Seattle to meet Anthony and Mike for Sunday beers. We got a letter they’re moving forward with the project next door, to tear… Read More ›
In the morning coming off the plateau the fog looked like clouds over the lake
That April we got married the weather had been good every weekend three weekends in a row and I worried our luck would run out by our wedding day. There were about 50 people coming in to a mountain lodge… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 