I gave up looking for Emmett’s body and made my way back up the hillside, to the house. The dog had escaped the Invisible Fence, through the snow, without a trace of his footprints, just vanished. It was January, 1998:… Read More ›
Memoir
Getting out of the labyrinth: Trying to finish Portrait so I can get on with my life
I thought it would be a good idea to do this again, to read James Joyces’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But instead, I’ve gotten wrapped around the axle with the author, his conflicts with the… Read More ›
Starbucks and the plastic valve
The plastic valve is called FlavorLock™. It’s a barely noticeable, plastic disc inside a bag of coffee that lets aromatic gasses out, but prevents oxygen from getting in. I can’t figure out who invented the technology, but it changed everything… Read More ›
Can you be interesting every day?
I can’t be anything every day, let alone interesting. But it’s a good challenge: can I devote 15 minutes a day to record something interesting about my life? Is there something worth sharing, every day? I came to this after… Read More ›
Earthquake
A guy shouted at us, Get away from the building! My boss was pale white and crying, all the blood drawn out of her face. Doris, my colleague, looked like she was 10 years old, as if the fear of… Read More ›
Prism
The prism is a piece of cut crystal hung in my window. We bought it at the Jersey shore in the late 70s when I was a little boy. I asked my dad for it when I was going off… Read More ›
Six Arms
My first bar in Seattle was Six Arms. Glen was a skinny guy who worked there and drove a silver 280-Z. He was sick with HIV, and they had a jar to collect donations for his treatments, but he died… Read More ›
Buckets of Rain
I got into Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks in high school while riding in the back of Mark’s Mustang, on the way to New Hope, Pennsylvania. The car was fast, and we hugged the twists and turns along the Delaware… Read More ›
Death is not the end
It’s the only dream I’ve had where I actually die in it. Normally, if I’m being chased by something or I’m falling, I wake up before it’s over, or I find a way out. But this dream ended with the… Read More ›
Sentiment, sediment, and what’s at the bottom of it
Alright, so I am sentimental about people, places and things. I keep old notes in my coats, a mish-mash of crap in my sock drawer, and I’ve been known to haunt dead-end streets where I necked with a girl. I… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 