The acts of being and pretending are one and the same through an artful delusion of self. That form of delusion is how people with big dreams make them a reality: by not letting reality get in the way.

mid-life crisis
Far country falls
On that gray November day we settled into a small town on the west coast of Scotland. Most of the leaves were down and the colors resigned to brown, the red on the roadside you’d mistake for leaves was really… Read More ›
Talk about the passion
We got the house we always wanted but sometimes fantasized about having another, smaller one so we could re-experience life that way without the burden of having to do it full time. That happened on my morning walks to the… Read More ›
Saved by old times
Like a Greek myth that punishes its subject to suffer the daily pattern of futility as recompense for some trespass with the gods, so it was: not the recurring monotony of the pandemic but instead just getting our kids to… Read More ›
You can never quarantine the past
Labor Day came and went, hot easterly winds. The tell-tale crunch of leaves. In mid September we drove to that strange town in the French mountains, Saint-Pierre des Champs. We rented a Eurovan and I was the only one who… Read More ›
Damn good address for a rat
But for the crows it’s quiet on my walk to the lake. The clouds make it glum with the lawns going brown and the leaves coming down. I jump the gun with fall, my favorite season (the first half). In… Read More ›
Life’s rich pageant
For two weeks I ate the same sandwich from the 5 lb butt I smoked, pulled pork with pickles. Then I started ordering albums off Amazon without keeping track, and every day it was like Christmas as I backfilled my… Read More ›
Downgraded to a tropical depression
The drive to the coast takes five hours from Seattle with three cities in between: Tacoma, Olympia, and Aberdeen. From Aberdeen it’s another two hours to the ocean, featureless and hard to keep awake. I’ve gotten better about what music… Read More ›
The last run up the A7
I can remember exactly how it felt, and then it’s gone. The look of the sky when it started to change, how clear the seam between summer and fall that year we spent in Germany. How the winery workers appeared… Read More ›
When the owls cry in the night
The irony is I always wanted to work for a creative agency and now that I do they don’t call themselves that. I had to wash the day off of me. Two weeks working on the same thousand words. Words,… Read More ›