Sure, I was still the same but my face was starting to look smudged in those new photos where I looked older. The forehead exposed, the jaw gone slack, the eyes hollowed out and the skin, less color to it…. Read More ›

work-life balance
The corrections
No matter how much I worried I was growing apart from my kids (or vice versa), there was still time. I picked Charlotte up after work and asked where she wanted to go for dinner. We drove to Issaquah and… Read More ›
“Fall back”
I got as close to the light as I could though it was all gray and not much to speak of, and there in the corner of the window a stink bug fanned the glass with a limp leg, and… Read More ›
Top down
On the first foggy morning of late September the daylight cut itself in half and the moon looked full as we drove home from our birthday celebration for Charlotte. We climbed the steps to bed, the three of us (Dawn… Read More ›
Broken clouds
In the morning the tops of the trees were pale-pink from a sun I couldn’t see, and it was cool enough I needed a sweater for my walk. It was just me on the road until I got to the… Read More ›
Cumulus in D-major
After work I went out back with a lawn chair to clear my head and watch the clouds. There was a flat spot to put my beer glass on a stump, from the plum tree we had taken out last… Read More ›
“Send it off in a letter to yourself”
In the morning my eyes were puffy and my hair askance, and I went to Starbucks like that for a cold brew. I said skip the ice, I just need the caffeine — the woodpecker woke me up again. And… Read More ›
The crow can’t sing, it clicks
Down the blooms fell, a different kind of fall. We did the spatchcock chicken again with the New Orleans rub and the leftover corn and asparagus. It was one of the best days I had at my new job, and… Read More ›
Walk on guilded splinters
Though it works hard it’s the slowest clock I’ve ever seen, falling behind by an hour or more every day. I finished my first two weeks in the new job, celebrated our wedding anniversary late, worked through some issues with… Read More ›
Love and work (and when it doesn’t work out)
Crossing into April, Dawn and I were getting ready to be married. But the weather had been so nice every weekend for three weekends straight, we worried our luck wouldn’t hold out. All of us met at a lodge in… Read More ›