On the last day before I went back to work I lay on the sofa with my shirt off and the morning sun coming in, playing a record, burning incense, reading poetry. All I had left was to clean the… Read More ›
humor
Wit’s End, Washington
In the mornings it’s so dark I just lay in the den watching constellations and listening to the clocks tick, thinking any day now I’ll start work. I read about portmanteau words like brunch, Brexit, and Microsoft. The word psionics,… Read More ›
Your Mom’s Ashes
Lily and her friends have formed a band called Your Mom’s Ashes, but spell it in a way that bastardizes the your and ignores the possessive for the mom’s. The four of them circle our property looking creatively blocked, needing… Read More ›
The intensely masculine act of splitting wood
I fantasized regularly about having a good woodpile. For me, woodpiles always represented a unique combination of order and comfort. Everything in its right place. But after three days of splitting wood every part of me hurt. On the third… Read More ›
How I spent the back half of my summer, unemployed
I took my time shaving, flossing, folding the laundry and putting away dishes. I took long, indulgent showers. In short, I slowed down. Stopped checking my phone. Went through things in the garage, reread old letters, threw out none. Sifted… Read More ›
Letters and passageways (3): Rob and Paul
This is a series of rewritten journal entries from the summer I spent in the south of France, the first entry here. Rob and Paul seem like an unlikely gay couple to me, not knowing what gay couples are supposed… Read More ›
Letters and passageways (2): Shawn and Seamus
This is a series of rewritten journal entries from the summer I spent in the south of France, the first entry here. Shawn Lee is my favorite bartender at my favorite bar, The Six Arms. He is often smiling, and… Read More ›
Self portrait under August sky
It is a Thursday night with live music at nearby Pine Lake we can hear from our house. It is also a full moon, the night before we leave for Alaska, the coffee maker set for 3. I’ve shaved my… Read More ›
How the house felt after the kids left for summer camp
Outside it was warm and the lupine stalks were bending down, some on their faces like mollusks gumming the ground but not making it very far, frozen mid-suck. The dog smelled bad, a telltale bad like she’d rubbed herself in… Read More ›
Broken clouds
Charlotte starts therapy today at the same time as Lily, which means by late afternoon the three of us will each be talking to different counselors in separate rooms, with Dawn waiting in the lobby with her book. It’s afternoon… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 