Abner Doubleday, my six year-old puggle, is a pup of many names. Around the time I got him, in 2007, I named him “Abner” because I was on a big baseball kick. I’d recently watched Ken Burns‘ baseball documentary, and I was fascinated by the story of General Doubleday who, as legend has it, founded […]
Hamza.
I remember the day Avery and I were walking through the orchard, before I’d moved there, and when we climbed up on the cliff overhanging the river, there you were just sitting there in your yellow and blue jacket. All by yourself. It was one of those beautiful spring days, a little breeze just barely […]
Melt
that day we packed the snow into a makeshift man, no carrots or coal for his eyes or nose or mouth – he was enough as snow for us, and as we thawed out at your mother’s house, our boots left a puddle by the wood-stove, and you still wore that ugly pink toboggan, the […]
The Little We Know that Keeps us from Empathy
Earlier today, my Mom told me a story about my grandfather from when she was in college. Over the course of several months, he began to grow increasingly paranoid for the family’s safety and eventually began to hear voices in his head. That lead my grandmother to intervene when she feared his unfounded paranoia was […]
Paul and the Magic Rock
I don’t consider myself a mystical sort of person. I don’t think I believe in ghosts, and while I definitely believe that there’s something greater than me out there, a kind of spiritual realm akin my own mundane one, I don’t think – in my life – I’ve gotten many glimpses of something I could […]
Troy and the Woodpecker
One of the things I really wish I could understand is why some memories stick with us while others just wash away. It’s almost like some moments in our lives become stories we tell ourselves (and others) over and over, and those stories go beyond just being part of our story-telling cache; they become a […]
The Fox
And in the night I see the fox whose secret scamper is a claim – a lie really – that she isn’t real, like sasquatch or chupacabra, hiding in the shadows but with a swift stealth not even they could match, and her soft, red coat is a beauty that belongs beyond the secrets of […]
Infobesity as a Tool to Manipulate the Masses
Remember the big, bad sequester – the automatic, across-the-board spending cuts that went into effect a few months ago because Congress was obstructionist and inept? If you weren’t directly affected by those cuts, it’s probably not on your mind anymore, but those cuts continue to hurt many people. I don’t remember the last time someone […]
Ms. Hardin’s Senior Lit. Class, c.2001-2002, or the Depths of Free-writing
Ever have one of those college or high school classes that was just the right mixture of people? It didn’t necessarily have to be the people you liked; you might have even despised a few of them. But something about the group dynamic made the class a cut above the rest. You were actually excited […]
Saying Goodbye to Aaron
I didn’t have many friends growing up. For about nine years or so (from third grade to senior year of high school), I only had one, real friend. I had myself convinced that there are two kinds of people in the world: social people who have lots and lots of acquaintances but few meaningful friendships […]
