My Anxiety

It took a while, but it came.

I thought I was immune, but no one is.

There is a tree with thick, knuckly roots driving into the soft green earth. Its branches do all sorts of interesting things: hold nests and tire swings, block the hot sun, reach into other trees, click against on… Read more...

Let The Thing Reveal Itself

Woman wearing teal dress sitting on chair talking to man

We talk big when we’re trying to convince someone of something. Big words, long sentences. Multiple paragraphs.

The other day, I was talking with a friend of a friend about something important — national politics or smog or something. We were both taking turns making o… Read more...

The Great Intermission

A global pandemic is as big as it gets.

Bigger than a tectonic shift (an earthquake only affects a city or two).
Bigger than landing on the moon. (Only a few competing nations care about that.) Bigger than a political scandal, a stock market crash, and the fall of an empire.

The who… Read more...

The 3 Voices In My Head

We all have voices in our heads. I’ve identified 3 that hang out there the most.

The Hip Hop Artist

The loudest of them all is a potty-mouthed rapper. Irreverent, unyielding, and always talking in slang, the Hip Hop Artist cuts to the chase, cuts to the bone with his words. H… Read more...

The Race

I was helping my daughter put together her pinewood derby car for Girl Scouts. We were laying on our stomachs lining up the nail to go through the tire at the exact right angle. As I was explaining why it was important to make sure the tire doesn’t rub the wood she surprise… Read more...

Dreams And What They Do

I have a dream.

All the greats said that.

I think dreams get a bad rap. They’re usually portrayed as wispy clouds in the sky, nothing you can hold onto, a thing to revere from a distance.

But don’t be fooled by the floating. If you examine a cloud closely, you’ll s… Read more...

Happy 2020, or Whatever

My Psychology teacher ignored the beginning and endings of chapters when he was lecturing. As soon as he finished preaching Chapter 1, he’d move right into Chapter 2, even if there were just 5 minutes left of class.

“What?!” he’d reply, with fake incredulou… Read more...

The Machine Gun

When I’m excited about something, I make machine-gun noises with my mouth. If I’m really stoked, I’ll cup my hands to my mouth to make the noise louder, and then move my head from side to side in a sweeping motion as if I’m spraying the room with machine-g… Read more...

Try Not Knowing

The greatest thing you can do upon meeting someone new is to recognize that you do not know them.

What you see, how you feel… these things will mislead you. We are manipulated by patterns and repetition. Once we see 5 trees grow to the same height with the same fruit, we sta… Read more...