Category: life
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Why Tara and I Quit Social Media. All Of It.
Starting this month, Tara and I quit social media. All of it. Deleted about ten years of followers on Twitter accidentally — that kind of kicked it off. Then I deleted about 25k in Reddit karma. Nothing to brag about, but certainly not an insubstantial amount either. She got rid of Instagram and Facebook. I…
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The Ballad of the Morning of the Writer
with deference to Stephen Pressfield Before she opened eyes, she heard Alarms — her shouting clock. She’d set it for her pre-dawn words. Her dry-mouth-taste: a sock? The children soon would rise from bunks And writing time would end But blank pages await. Tales trunked— They whispered, “Sleep again.” Children took out the pep from her…
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BRYAN COFFEY :: IN MEMORIUM
Bryan Coffey passed away a few days ago. He is survived by his wife Shirley Schaubert-Coffey and children and grandchildren and so, so, so many of us. They have a saying in Spanish: The words are grieved. Means that some things are so heartbreaking that it’s folly to try and speak about them. But…
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The 2016 Worbemusties — Worst, Bests, and Musts of the year behind and before
A few years back, I did these Worbemustie awards on my site. It was a way to look backwards and forwards — backwards to the bests and worsts of the previous year (did I accomplish my goals?) and forwards to the next year. The bests, worsts, and musts. You know, The 2016 Worbemusties. We start…
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Lexi’s Song • from 54 Poems at 27
All the ice melted leaving dark snowmen every forty feet And all their plastic bones are exposed. All the glass open every screen up But the radiator’s set to a hundred and four. How did we go from the frozen circle of Lucifer and plunge into another myth, oh a lake of fire? I remember…
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Between Pretend and Reality
:: A trip to the Sunset Park CSA Farm :: originally at SunsetParkCSA.org (pitctures by the same) The day my wife and I planned on visiting the upstate farm our local Sunset Park CSA supports, I was hauling around a twelve-hundred-page Brandon Sanderson novel. Hardback. My arms ached. I’ve built up their strength recently by…
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Wheel Well with a Rope Inside
One Hour Ago: Driving up a tight curve on Murphy Blvd, which cuts across Joplin, I hear a thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk in my front right wheel well. Still driving, I glance out the widow and see something long catching the yellow light. Long like rope, and it’s stretching from front wheel to back window in its spin…
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A Note on Dilemmas
Rarely in life do any of us have to pick between the lesser of two evils. Rare enough that I considered saying, “never.” Instead, dilemmas show up that force us to choose the greater of two goods. We must pick between what is right and what is cool, or between what is beautiful and what…
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Tales from Home: The World’s Largest Hippo
Fall makes me nostalgic, that’s my only excuse for what follows. Tales from Home all come from my past. I reserve the right to exaggerate, alter, or fabricate details. I’m not Lake Wobegon and this ain’t my News. These are just… tales from home. My goal is to share, to entertain, maybe to inspire, but…
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KC Color Run!
Turns out the Joplin Color Run was JV compared to the KC Color Run’s varsity team. Backstory: my wife has Type 1 Diabetes and has been kicking its tail with this running stuff. We got there, and this was the line for the porta-potty. I put down water faster than most waiters can bring it…