The hot tub smells not altogether good when it’s been left a while without its chemicals. I come home to find it gagging on a Barbie doll one of the kids put under the lid, legs sticking out, choking. Hair… Read More ›
writing
Cruel and Unusual Publishing
I’ve been keeping a list of words I need to look up from David Foster Wallace’s 1996 Infinite Jest. Yesterday’s included erumpent, sedulously and egregulous — and sure enough, I got duped. Egregulous was made-up, and landed me on a website… Read More ›
If the memoir is a mirror you cracked it (for Alan Turing)
We bunker down between the bands of snow on the radar and the news cycles. The squares on the calendar pages where you get stuck waiting to roll again, to advance. A clipper is coming from the west, to meet… Read More ›
On faith and football and dreams
Ginger and I have been out corkscrewing hillsides in the Issaquah Alps, trying to lose track of time and find ourselves in the woods. I carry my notepad with me and stop to write, and she comes to collect me…. Read More ›
Which is true of anything (for DFW)
It started with the glassy-eyed couple at the lake. They had a dog too. They sounded like they used drugs or lived in Northern California, you could tell by the way they talked. The guy said you can teach a… Read More ›
Geographic Tongue
I’m told it’s common, affecting 2-3% of the population, which doesn’t sound common, but intriguing still: Geographic Tongue. I picked my hygienist because she seems genuinely passionate about oral health. When I ask for more information she gets excited talking… Read More ›
On wood-gathering and storytelling
The trail description said it gained 700 feet, but I didn’t remember it all happening in the first five minutes. I didn’t read the notices at the trailhead or carry a map because it’s just a canyon, one way in,… Read More ›
The 1 o’clock IPA
The day was so dark it hardly felt like the day. The Internet was down again, a desperate feeling over the house, something was off. He talked to the man about a job, talked to him through a text message,… Read More ›
Lost in the woods
It wasn’t in the outfit I chose for myself each day before going to work, and it wasn’t in the mirror or the photographs on our walls at home. I lost track of where it went and sometimes wondered if I… Read More ›
What little light reflects on the lake
The house had the look of drunks about it, the left behind, random disorder of things not put away, fallen on their sides, not cared for. Light bulbs, plush toys, DVDs all sharing the same shelf by the stereo speaker…. Read More ›
Bill Pearse 