My boss asked if I could help pull together information for a report. The report was going to the then CEO (Starbucks, 1997). I was young, 26, eager to help. There were about a dozen people who owed me content… Read More ›
Memoir
That last fall in Arbroath
This time last year we were getting ready to leave Arbroath, Scotland for Halloween in Inverness, at the mouth of the Loch Ness, with much anxiety from the kids on what that would mean for our trick-or-treating plans. We had… Read More ›
Carson Street, revisited
This post continues one I started two years ago, about the time I lived in Pittsburgh, featured on Freshly Pressed. Bingo Quixote was his stage moniker but his real name was Bob, Bob Zimmer. Myki said after I left Pittsburgh… Read More ›
My writing partner, Penn State ’88
Dave Kravetz, his eyes through the smoke watching me read his poems, all those papers in his gunny sack, his camo jacket and cigarettes, his bleached hair a frozen wave crashing over one eye, his bad temperament (some story about… Read More ›
I lost myself in the craters of the moon in Scotland last November
We were always with the moon cycle it seemed. When we landed in Germany at the end of July it was a blue moon, when we left Amsterdam by ferry to Newcastle it was full again, and on our last… Read More ›
The first thing we’ll do is round up all the reporters
If there’s an analogy to be made between the winding down of the US presidential election and a sunset, the analogy breaks down when you consider the fact that most people enjoy sunsets. I debated between a winter sunset, the… Read More ›
Before we lost power I scheduled this
I couldn’t help getting drunk before the storm, I fell into a dream where I never did land and saw my body flicker out, and forgot. I went out for the dark and the rain because why wouldn’t you, it… Read More ›
How it felt before the storm
Though the storm had started I took Ginger for a walk. It was raining harder than you can imagine, and the frogs were going nuts — like a scene from the bible announcing something auspicious, or maybe they just wanted… Read More ›
A conference of the senses, the cedars
They blew the cedar branches out of the storm drains and Charlotte said it reminded her of Christmas, the smell. We were on the road last December driving from Galway down the southwest of Ireland, stopping in Cork to meet my… Read More ›
Transfiguration
The blowing, sideways rains of November have returned this October. When I got out of the hot tub I smelled worse than when I got in, a combination of bromine and chlorine you’re not supposed to mix, the smell of… Read More ›