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Change Your Words, Change Your Life
It started because I drank a little too much. That’s not a particularly inspiring part of the story. But still. There was alcohol involved. There is no use lying about it. I was at my Mom’s house last...
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A Father’s Day Essay
This is not a typical blog post (although please don’t ask me to describe what is a typical blog post is). Instead, below you’ll find an essay, entitled “Out of Order.” I started it about three years...
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A Week for Seeing
July 3rd is my brother Paul’s birthday. He died five years ago, but he would have been 54 on Thursday. I think it’s obvious why I’m thinking of him this week. But then there is the show Orange is the...
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And Now, For My Secrets
They tell us from the time we’re young, to hide the things that we don’t like about ourselves, inside ourselves. I know I’m not the only one who spent so long attempting to be someone else. Well, I’m...
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This Actually Isn’t About a Chipmunk
My brother Herb told me I had to write this newsletter. It involves a cat killing a chipmunk, so it may not be appropriate for all audiences. But mostly it involves my brother being right. Which is so...
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The Princess Test
Have you ever tried to convince someone that they don’t like something they clearly like, because it doesn’t serve you very well that they like it? I catch myself worrying that I’m doing this with...
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My Weekend of Terrible Sign-Reading
All I can do after this crazy weekend is reflect on the nature of signs. Baked into human intelligence is our reliance on signs to tell us, you know, everything: the weather, if someone loves us, if a...
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The Pontiac, The Lexus, and Me
My youth was filled with crappy cars. Or, more accurately: stories about crappy cars. By the early 1960s (a good 10 years before I came along), my parents had four kids crammed into that very...
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Stories About Things You Can’t Change
It’s the season for baby birds to fall out of nests. On Saturday afternoon, one fell out of the big maple tree in our front yard, right into a patch of creeping jenny. I was outside with my kids when...
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My Rage Against Charlie
I’ve known for some time that I wanted to write this newsletter. Three years perhaps. I had to wait until my rage against Charlie had faded. To be clear, Charlie is a lovely man. Every time I’ve seen...
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The Water Lilies Made Me Do It
Six summers ago, I had an assignment from Midwest Living to scout some state parks in Ohio. The last morning of my trip, it was storming. Torrential quality stuff. I wanted to be done already (I had a...
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My Letter to a Veteran (Now Write Yours)
Dear Dad, Man, you look handsome and bad-ass in this picture. (Note to impressionable teens: this was 1952 and the tobacco companies were deceiving everyone about smoking: go watch The Insider.)...
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The Story of My Favorite Christmas Ornament
My family put up the Christmas tree this past Sunday. I noticed, as I do every year, that my Christmas tree ornaments are the very definition of eclectic. While the mother in me loves best the...
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