On the five-hour drive to Brad’s cabin I kept it cool in the car to stay awake, to keep my cold tolerance up. Driving across the state to the east, how it all flattens to farmlands and big skies, windmills,… Read More ›
identity
The day I turned purple (2019)
After 10 days without drinking, the swelling in my lower gut finally went down. A balloon losing air. On Monday I was offered a new job, and on Friday I turned in my laptop and said goodbye. The January bugs… Read More ›
On Sundays and holidays
We spent the aftermath of Christmas on Whidbey island, a town called Langley, so idyllic they still have phone booths with free local calls, wild bunnies, signs in the shop windows promoting inclusion, views of the water, a bell to… Read More ›
Inside a broken clock splashing the wine with all the rain dogs
The rain now is that rain we associate as November rain in the Northwest. It has its own aspect, like no other. It is not a rain to be fucked with, and comes on hard and fouls up the roads,… Read More ›
November 22, 2018 (Thanksgiving). I went back in time to the chauffeur’s flat, that place we stayed in a remote corner of Scotland one Thanksgiving, unlike any other. Near some small, port town on the coast by the ferries over… Read More ›
“Fall back”
I got as close to the light as I could though it was all gray and not much to speak of, and there in the corner of the window a stink bug fanned the glass with a limp leg, and… Read More ›
The same deep water as you
We went back to the old elementary school, Charlotte’s last year, for the annual Halloween bash. Dawn and I stood in the playground feeling tired and out of sorts, trying to make out the identities of kids running by as… Read More ›
‘Cuts you up’
Lily (who now goes by Lee) and I drove to the Teanaway river valley on the east side of the Cascades, stopping at a Safeway in the small town of Cle Elum for junk food. I didn’t bring the guts… Read More ›
Song from a shell
In the icy depths of sleep, in dreams, you held me when I was no one, just myself, a shell You held me at the edges where I could have been anyone, but wasn’t— and in sleep, in dreams, is… Read More ›
The flavor is in the blood
Any cook will tell you, when you brown meat and rest it on the plate, blood will accumulate there and you always use that blood, or whatever juice comes out, when you put it in the pot. I sat in… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 