Tonight a band called The Church is playing the Aladdin Theater in Portland, Oregon. I had a ticket for this show, but I can’t go for a few reasons, not the least of which is that I think my dog may be nearing the end of her life and I want to stay close to […]

Sucker. None of these are good, haven’t you figured that out yet, Ghost? It’s all just more of the same drivel. I mean, things are looking up. My dog was sick after a dose of anesthetic for a dental procedure, which resulted in “stress colitis”, which required a round of antibiotics. It was a literal […]

Is it possible to try to be the best that one can be and feel like the worst person ever? That’s how I feel right now. My dog Eden is 13 years old. Three years ago, when she was 10, my vet recommended a dental cleaning because she had some tartar buildup and potentially needed […]

Vacation started today. I mean, really it started on Friday afternoon, but I would have had the weekend off anyway, so today is the first real day off work. It’s exciting. I have the whole week off, plus next weekend, PLUS the Monday after that, because it’s a holiday. I left my work computer at […]

Along the lines of Protect Your Peace, and People Will Tell You Who They Are If You’ll Only Listen, and with a big ol’ dollop of Fuck Around And Find Out, I have had my final fight with my father. He is a miserable man, 86 years old, depressed and angry at the world. My […]

OK, if that title doesn’t open up a whole can of ear worms for you, then do yourself a favor and type that phrase into Spotify right this minute. Up until a few years ago my presence on the planet had been poured into inflexible molds dictated much by the will of others, confining and […]

My most recent opposite-sex-connection ended recently. I’m not terribly sad about it, though we’ve been sleeping together once a week for about six months, so I was lightly fond of him. I call him an opposite-sex-connection because it wasn’t a relationship. I mean, it wasn’t a relationship in the way that people often talk about […]

I was a classical violinist for about 20 years. From age 9 to about age 30, I persisted. It was a struggle. An instrument I loved with all my heart when I began taking lessons became my nemesis, the most hated object in my world, by the time I was 18. After I left my […]

I’m caught in an infinite loop of self-love and self-harm, and it needs to stop because the pain it’s causing me is dangerous. In the post “All the Right Cooks in the Kitchen” I wrote about seeing everything that you do good for yourself as an act of self-love. In other words, running five miles […]

You’re welcome for the earworm. If you don’t know what an earworm is, or what song that’s supposed to be, you might be a millennial. Or whatever the fuck Gen Z is. Yesterday marks one year that I’ve been in Portland. Or it marks the day that I left Albuquerque. I can’t seem to easily […]