I don’t have to tell you how heavy it feels. By now, you know the numbers. 19 children, two adults. The second-most deadly mass shooting at a K-12 school in history, trailing only the 26 from Sandy Hook. I remember being 19 years old when 13 students were killed in…

I paused at the railroad tracks, surrounded by trash, a few blankets, and one mattress of mysterious origin. I leaned over a little to see that the wheel on my suitcase had shed a layer. The inner circle retained its perfectly-round shape —a wheel within a wheel, a tiny rolling…

I don’t remember where the seed of thought came from, but it arrived fully-formed: “does meaning require permanence?” The easy reaction is no, it does not. It cannot. Otherwise, these fleeting moments cease to have importance as soon as they are over. A kiss, an artistic performance, an entire childhood…

After every Little League baseball in Cleburne, Texas in the late 1980s, each player was entitled to one (1) free soda at the concession stand. At some point, it became very en vogue to ask the attendants to do a little extra work and mix a splash of every flavor…

Not to bring the room down but the Irish in me has done the requisite drinking for the situation and now the rest of the Irish in me needs to tell a story. A man who was once my best friend died last Thursday in a car accident. We hadn’t…

i’ve been thinking about vulnerability lately, about how that word means different things. there’s the negative connotation, of course. “your firewall has security vulnerabilities” or “your immune system is particularly vulnerable to certain allergens”. in this sense, vulnerability is a weakness, a breakdown in the defense system. but i’ve been…

It’s just after noon on a Sunday, and I’m not at a restaurant. Nobody should be at a restaurant right now, but this isn’t just pandemic-whining. I’m also not at a restaurant because my entire Sunday routine has changed. Restaurant Sundays were a byproduct of Sunday mornings spent at church…

It’s like I’m reaching for a phantom limb. The one where I kept all the words, all the inspiration, all the ability to … what’s the word… make … information… be … thoughts. Always before, this feeling was depression. Depression was bad. It felt like this. This also feels bad…

I am listening to “Farewell Transmission” by Songs: Ohia (again. and again). It is my going-away song, I guess. I used to have a coming home song, but too many times going away and coming home made me tired of hearing it. …