Now they are back at that shady music venue on the edges of town by the freeway on-ramp. Bill and Mike, college chums. A weeknight but they pretend they’ve still got it in them. 2005, mid-thirties. Neither of them have… Read More ›
Nostalgia
First date, can’t wait
First date with a girl, spring 1985. I’m 14, a freshman: she’s 16, a junior. An embarrassment to date an underclassmen but there you go. She’s in the band, but beautiful. Mom says you need a “good haircut” which means… Read More ›
Double time
In mid-May Lily graduated from the boarding school in Utah and we flew into Las Vegas and rented a van to move her things home. I asked if she could start the process before we got there. Then I helped… Read More ›
Head GAMES
When the singer of the 1970s band Foreigner Lou Gramm sings the song Head Games he puts the emphasis on the word GAMES like he’s angry. I get it, I played head games too. Like the night Susannah E- came… Read More ›
My heart aches for these days
In the morning on the warmest day it’s still cool but you can feel the temperature start to change. I get to the park earlier than normal and the sky is the color of abalone shell, turquoise mixed with pink…. Read More ›
Come on Eileen
Now in this corner of the night it is all quiet save for the sound of music coming from the end of the hall. A song from the 80s with a fiddle, a song they played while Lily was visiting…. Read More ›
The better together speech, 1984
The way the clouds pass across the sky and stretch like see-through gauze through my window. Stretching back to another time. Stumbling onto the stage and crossing it as a 14-year-old. Dropping my speech, the papers scattering across the floor,… Read More ›
One more wish
That was it. Sometimes I could see how the rest of my life would play out by the way it was going day by day. We watched the sequel to Dune, that world’s lore, the large underground worms and the… Read More ›
Last Friday in January
31 Jan 25 I did not feel it pressing down on me, or lifting me from my bed in the middle of the night, that mad desire to capture the moment of being here. It happened in the past, for… Read More ›
Figures in the fog
21 Jan 25 All the rooms in mom’s house were irregular, the lines along the ceilings sloped or sagging. The toilet in her bathroom angled downwards. The problem I had with the old photos and going through them was they… Read More ›