So you know that thing when you’ve been lamenting nonstop about your life out loud, and you’re about to give up and become a hermit, and you’re laying in bed on Thanksgiving morning bemoaning your state of affairs, and your new old friend texts you and you thought he was 6 hours and a whole […]

Sometimes I feel like everything I do is preparing for death. Like I just want to make it through this week, and the next week, and every week for the foreseeable future until I can lie down and rest for good. Doesn’t that sound awful? It means that every week is a struggle for me. […]

So I tried online dating. That is to say, I got a dating app and looked at a bunch of people and messaged with two. Christ. What a fucking bunch of shit. What a creeping cesspool of all the dregs of humanity. I literally hated myself while I was messaging. If one more guy is […]

I’ve been here a week and I’m still sitting in a pile of boxes. I’ve unpacked so many, how can there still be so many left? One of my forks has gone missing. I can’t find my coffee carafe. Or the clothes hangers, which I feel sure I packed in a box. There is a […]

It’s my first day in Portland, after a grueling three-day journey with a traumatized dog and cat, in a 16-foot rental van full of my meager possessions, hauling a trailer with my Subaru on the back. I white-knuckled it the whole way both literally, through every conceivable kind of weather the western United States could […]

This is my favorite picture of me and my mom, ever (see below). There are several over the years, but this one really stands out. My mom is smiling, not admonishing or critical. I’m relaxed, not being criticized or told how to act in the photo. It’s a crazy change. She doesn’t remember that my […]

Yesterday my dad told me he had a nightmare. He found himself on a boat, on the Elbe river in Germany near where he grew up. Suddenly he was in command, steering a boat with passengers aboard with no idea what any of the controls meant or how to navigate. I think this dream is […]

Once more into the fray, aboard a tiny metal tube hurtling through the air toward Denver, trusting all the numbnuts in row 13 to be relatively COVID-free. This is a last-minute parental visit before I head out to the land of rain and good bands forever. Alis volat propriis, the state motto of Oregon, is […]

The move is imminent. I’ve pretty much got some of the major stuff covered, like a job, a place to live, and a pre-move visit to my parents. One thing I don’t have figured out is how to get there. I was thinking about a full-service move, but it’s crazy to think about how a […]

I listened to a RadioLab podcast today called “The Queen of Death”, and I think I know what I want to do with my life. This wasn’t really a sudden revelation, it was just one of several strands of thoughts and experiences over the last year or so that have finally come together. The RadioLab […]