You’re not happy. You’re still all-you.Dear You, Hey. Are you feeling a little “over-seen” in these past few weeks? Yeah, I know how you feel. When “public” suicide happens, it’s so substantially private — so completely hidden inside the person who has departed — that it’s hard not to feel an equal sense of horror and…
I stopped by Nick and Heather’s house yesterday to drop off a tablespoon of bourbon for a truffle recipe Nick was making. I asked Nick what he made for his family Thanksgiving. “I made this delicious farro recipe. Want to try it?” It wasn’t until a depressing day in 1994 sitting on the steps of…
One of my favorite things to write about is PEOPLE. I often get the chance to interview people and just ask them: How did you end up here? By “here” I mean right where they are in their lives… doing exactly what they are doing. Cutting hair, owning a bar, running a business + being…
“You are doing it all wrong.” I go through distinct phases of my week/day/life when I can clearly hear myself telling this to myself. It might not matter exactly what I am doing — anything really from cleaning the house to baking a chicken — but the message is clear: you are doing it wrong.…
This weekend, the kids and Colin and I went to New Jersey for the first time, (barring a visit to Newark airport) to visit a family of friends. It’s sort of rare to meet another family with more than two or three kids these days, so we immediately magnetized to Alma and Brian and their…
You know all that flag-waving, “true-American” rhetoric we hear from the Rush Limbaugh conservatives? I was thinking about that today, as I was pondering getting our organic garden ready to spring planting. It’s Ok. I know I am preaching to the choir generally. But a good argument is worth saying, just in case it’s seeps…
Have you ever been puttering along a normal sort of way, and then suddenly, without warning, found yourself in a big wet, messy heap? Once when I lived in London, I drank a bit too much at the after-hours while working at the pub. I was walking back home around 2 a.m. and one minute…
You ever get a bit of time where you feel like you are just dry out of ideas? I never seem to be out of ideas, but it seems like lately I keep hitting a wall of no. The wall of no has quite a few people sitting on top of it, their hairy legs…
There has been a small book on my bedside table for a couple months now. I opened it once, and after that I did not touch it. The book actually doesn’t seem to sit or even lie on the table. It seems to hover— held aloft from the earth and all its possessions from the…
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” –Howard Thurman Today my two friends, Karin and Marcy, both told me I should be WORKING WITH TEENAGERS. “You know how to talk to them.” “They seem to really…
Our town has a big indoor pool, circa 1943, that offers the world’s cheapest swimming lessons, for all ages. This is most excellent for us since we have 152 kids living at our house (Note: for those “interested parties,” who print out my blog for so-called legal reasons, please read the definition of hyperbole, as…
#reverb10 prompt for 12/25: Photo – a present to yourself. Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where,…
#reverb10 Prompt: Beyond avoidance. “What should you have done this year but didn’t because you were too scared, worried, unsure, busy or otherwise deterred from doing?” I should have revised the novel I wrote instead of chickening out and just taking a teaching job. Because I got positive feedback from agents on it. Because I…
Ok, so I know it’s Thursday — one day late for We Scout Wednesday— but isn’t that status quo on any DIY project? Scoutie Girl asked us: why do you DIY, then answered herself better than I could ever put it. “DIY fills the void between desire and reality. If God can create an Eve…
Today I was talking to some friends whom I haven’t seen much of over the summer. I shared with them a bit of the details of the roller coaster of our last few weeks. You know, just your average roller coaster of life. When I finished rolling out the 4-11, the friend circle was just…
