I’ve been experimenting with drugs for our pets, for a 14-hour international flight next week where they’ll sit in the cargo hold while I read a first draft of my memoir on the plane. I crush the drugs, dilute them… Read More ›
Memoir
Vergangenheitsbewältigung
Our German teacher has us saying the words Cherry, Church and Kitchen in German. They all sound the same, she asks if we can hear the difference — it’s how you clasp the vowels. We can’t. It’s a “ch” sound… Read More ›
The eagles are kites without strings
When I drop the dead crow in the compost bin it folds like a puppet with no hand. It feels auspicious, dead birds, and I’m glad I’m not getting on a plane today, laying low. We enter the roundabout swiftly,… Read More ›
Good Friday, 1981
On Good Friday my parents wake me to say Michael has passed away, we’re both around 11 — something I can’t pronounce or spell that came from a mosquito bite with blood taken from a sick horse that made his… Read More ›
How to set yourself apart
This time six years ago I was cramming for the PMP exam, a professional certification in project management I thought would set me apart as the economy was slipping and my development opportunities at work had come to a dead… Read More ›
Die Rechnung (The Reckoning)
If you want your bill at a German restaurant you say, “Die Rechnung, bitte,” which means the reckoning. And that’s what I’ve been doing by cleaning out my garage and going through personal things — I’m reconciling the past, settling… Read More ›
Sunday afternoon in the suburbs, Spring
I’ve taken the stowed-away things from our garage and laid them out on the driveway for reckoning. One pile gets donated, the other we get to keep. There’s a laundry basket full of plush toys, the unwanted/extra dolls and stuffed… Read More ›
No Plot? No Problem!
I bought this book by the guy who started the National Novel Writing Month, an annual project in November to encourage people who want to write a book to produce a first draft in just one month. A 50,000 word… Read More ›
Putting the man in project management
The weather has been like a Greek play and I don’t understand what’s going on, one moment it’s calm and there’s singing, the next it’s like the world will end. And you would have thought with all this fussiness I… Read More ›
Life is in the margins
People go to blogger conferences for about as many reasons as people blog. I went to the first one hosted by WordPress in Portland a few weeks ago with the simple goal of being inspired, and learning how to navigate… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 