The first thing you need to know about trick-or-treating in Scotland is it’s not called trick-or-treating, it’s called guising. And you don’t get candy for free just by waving your bags out, you have to sing a tune or recite… Read More ›
suburbs
Lisbeth Salander will have her reckoning
The upsetting quality of the music I play. The look of my hair after several days without shampoo. The sense I should be outside but don’t feel like it, the look of the snow after it finally seeps into our… Read More ›
The long wind down
On the last day of spring I walked to the lake in the morning, just past 5. It was light like it had been that way all day. I’d been up since 4, with the sounds of birdsong and fans… Read More ›
The Oxford comma
Dawn said there’s a cheaper treatment for lice, where you just put mayonnaise on your head and tie it off in a bag and then wait a couple hours, and they die from the oils. I learned about the Oxford… Read More ›
Lines (of longitude and latitude)
Though the tree is dead, it’s home to a lot of bugs, birds and bats, you can tell by the holes. It’s like the abandoned factory across the street from our apartment in Philadelphia that became home to the homeless,… Read More ›
Discreet Music | January 7, 2018
The dog’s hind leg shifts like a coal in the wood stove, stirs, then settles in. It’s Sunday and I vowed to cook, read, build a fire and that’s it. Spent half of it online reading consumer reviews of cars… Read More ›
Straw-colored grass, a bed of needles
The owl-eyed veterinarian talks too fast, wears her hair in a bun. The bun’s so tight it makes her eyes bulge. It’s always the same, we care about our dog and cat’s health, we start with good intentions. But her… Read More ›
Portrait of a house cat eating a bird one Thursday
Charlotte and I sat at the breakfast nook eating frozen pizza and watching our cat Roxy eat a bird. I watched Charlotte watching Roxy for a few bites before she realized what Roxy was eating and was glad when she… Read More ›
‘Most likely you go your way and I’ll go mine’
We got up. Though it was a Saturday we were out of bed by 6. It was getting grayish out and I wanted to see it. There’s a soft fade in reverse, mornings here. There’s some quiet before the kids… Read More ›
Listening to the band Suicide in a Peet’s coffeeshop in the suburbs, Redmond
I didn’t like the band Suicide before I heard them because I didn’t like their name, and when I saw the album art I liked them even less, it was the name Suicide made to look like it’d been carved… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 