That first kiss. It’s so full of possibility. Excitement. Joy. Nervous-ness. Angst. No matter how old you are. No matter how comfortable you are. That first kiss is the most humbling moment because you are raw, exposed and alone (well, not exactly alone but alone enough in your mind). You are at the mercy of […]
I started writing today’s post, a rather in-depth treatise about my five-year plan. The first explicit plan I’ve had in my life. When I realized something: I’m not ready to share that will you. It’s nothing personal, I promise. Although I’ve always found that particular phrase, when applied to a relationship, trite. After all, if […]
Sometimes I float. I couldn’t tell you exactly what brings upon these moods in my life anymore than I could tell you when I’m anchored down. Surely there are ideas, tiny thoughts that bounce around in my brain. Dissecting. Always dissecting. The eternal search for that One Thing that will make it all clear. That […]
1. The first movie I obsessed over, in the kind of way that can only be felt by the young, was Pump Up the Volume. It was the summer after my freshman year at Miami University. I was sober for the first time. I was home in my parents condominium, a place they bought not […]
General Butler State Park. This is my writing refuge. The place I go where there is no other place for me to go. The chaotic swirls of my life don’t find their way here. I am not sure why. I do not question these places. And yet I don’t always trust the quiet solitude. I […]
The night sometimes wraps itself around me. There’s an oddness to it that I can’t quite explain. Emptiness and hollow, a long, dark hallway. I think it’s way I don’t slow down. Or rarely slow down. Like a child who sprints up the stairs after flipping the light switch, desperately trying to beat the blackness. […]
There’s been only a very short period in my life when I’ve enjoyed flying. And enjoyed was probably not what it was. Probably fatigue, a soured relationship that exists near the back edge between the first months’ bliss and the final months’ disgusted disinterest. The area of empty casualness. My life in Berkeley involved flying. […]
Jim Carroll died today. This is weird for me. But not in the same way that it was weird for me when David Foster Wallace died. Or Hunter S. Thompson died. Those two days were low points in a life that was already spiraling out of control. Dark, evil days. Those two writers were the […]
prologue. "It" is happening again. The "it" that is happens not as much as "it" used to. Which strangely isn’t comforting. The "it" is a creeper, lying dormant for long stretches of time. Hiding. Always watching. Waiting. Which is what "it" does. I know this about "it", which makes "it" not so terrifying anymore because […]
Today was a good day. That’s happening more and more. I suspect those good days were always happening around me. I just wasn’t paying enough attention to it. Focused my energies in the wrong place. I still do that from time to time. Failure is part of being human so there’s no pretense that I’m […]
Buckle up. I’ve been reminiscing about the good old days quite a bit lately. Writing does that to me. Moving probably doesn’t help either. And trying to fill in the gaps with the Muse has been a big part of that as well. It’s been an interesting saga, these last 14 years. I tell these […]
(Inspired by Timothy McSweeney’s Very Intense Heated Passionate Battle/Embrace with They Might Be Giants) Simple Things: I’m sitting in my living room in Muncie, windows open, listening to the wind stroke the trees outside. The air smells like heavy electric. It’s one of those magical, farm country dark nights when you can imagine the demons […]