Blog
Flies
When you get to a certain age, you stop wishing your life away and start wishing that it would slow down. And that can be even worse.
You stop fretting Monday when in you’re in it and start fretting Tuesday because that’ll mean another precious day is gone.
Lately, however, I’ve been reciting a little mantra that has really drawn out some of the sting . . .
Sausage
My vision for the world of Jesse Barrow grew out of some close friendships, two friends in particular who grew up in rural Alabama. Now, obviously these close friends weren’t around in 1911 rural Alabama, but as someone who studies history, I’ve always been fascinated by how our past affects our present. And the older I’ve become, the more I’ve been fascinated by how our present informs how we view our past, which then, paradoxically, informs our present. Both the past and the present can distort the truth . . .
Magic
Kindness is
A spouse’s embrace when you’re crying
A stranger’s wave when you drive past them in your neighborhood
A woman who stops to move a turtle out of the street
Kindness is
Music that stirs the heart to tears
A sunset that cannot be owned
Teachers that teach us to read
Kindness is . . .
Prick
Got my second shot today!
(When will I start getting 5G?)
Look, there’s an awful lot of information available today. Some of it is good, some of it is bad, and some of it is just what we have.
But if we’re going to be people who claim to care—to care about truth and our shared humanity—we need to be really careful what information we put stock in.
I’ll give you an example that broke my heart just today . . .
Outlet
I’ll be honest… I’m tired.
This semester of law school started the first week of January and finished Friday. Between school and work, I’ve been going six and seven days a week for 18 weeks.
To say I learned a lot in that time would be a drastic understatement.
I learned about…
Tooth
I want to apologize in advance for any grammatical or philosophical loopyness contained in this blog post. I had a stubborn wisdom tooth pulled two days ago and am still dealing with a good bit of pain and, hence, medication.
But there have been some things that have been on my heart/mind the last little bit that I wanted to try to express.
2020 has been some year, no doubt. And as it counts it down, I’ve had a little bit of a chance to reflect, and I’m going to try to shed some light in what’s been an eerily dark tunnel for many of us . . .
Happy New Year
Well long time, no blog, eh?
I want to say Happy New Year, and provide an update on where things are as far as my life and my writing.
2019 was been a whirlwind of a year that began with recovering from back surgery and tinkering—seriously, for the first time—with the idea of going to law school. The year ended with a couple strong workouts and first semester grades that I’m really proud of. . .
Fog
One of my big struggle emotionally is the feeling of dread at the idea of forgetting things. And I don’t mean like, “where are my keys?”
I mean forgetting the big things… The important things…
Cup
Funny story, I couldn’t have anything to eat or drink after midnight before my surgery. The last think I had was a glass of water around 9:30pm. Woke up the next morning super early, peed, showered, got ready, and showed up at the hospital. When they take me back to prep me, they draw blood, hook me up to an EKG, take a chest x-ray, and then tell me that they’ll need a urine sample. I’m like… not sure I’m going to be able to oblige you there. They laughed and said, “Oh, you’ll be fine, just keep trying.”
An hour later no dice. I’m thinking to myself, I really wish someone had TOLD me they were gonna need a sample, otherwise I would have saved it up that morning!…
Slice
No.
Not that kind of slice.
Sorry.
In less than a week’s time I’ll be having my first major surgery since I broke my arm jumping out of the bathtub at age seven (I had to pee!).
2018 has been a rough year for me, mostly stemming from my physical condition.
I’ve had low back pain on and off since I was a teenager, but starting in January, it was different than normal. It was more in my gluten and down my leg than ever before…
Apollo
This will probably sound pretty silly, but do you know what my most irrational fear is? Tumbling out into space.
I was recently watching Apollo 13—great movie!—and the thought struck me...
Moment
I struggle with balance sometimes. Fortunately, at the moment I have no inner ear problems... I’m thinking more in terms of the concept itself...
Present
Normally, on a weekday morning, the rush is on.
Getting the first grader ready for school, lunch packed, and dropped off on time.
The four year old getting toys packed, slung in the carseat and off to my parent’s or in-laws house so that my wife and I can get to work.
This morning, however, I took my little one out to eat...
Curling
It took me twenty-five plus years to let go of belief systems that weren’t working for me.
I was raised in a bit of a bubble, and have really only recently started to realize the implications of life on the inside...
Machine
I’m afraid of wasting things. Time. Money. Resources.
Yet I seem to do a lot of precisely that.
I procrastinate when there’s work that could be done.
I buy another cup of coffee when I’ve already had three.
I lose pens all the time...
Sikh
This speaks to me. Deeply.
So I’ll just leave it here...
Sum
This post has nothing to do with math. You’re welcome.
Our thoughts can be so powerful… and maybe, at the end of the day, they’re all we have.
They have the power to make or break our day, our week, or our year...
Complex
This may sound like a weird thing to say, but, I do my best not to argue with my characters. I’ve finished my first novel, The Wages of Grace (coming January 2017!), and I must admit, if it’s nothing else, it’s honest.
I had a few trusted people read the manuscript when I was done with the first proper edit, and I had a lot of good suggestions. I took them all to heart and some I even implemented. However, when it came to character’s motivations or specific things they did that maybe didn’t seem to fit their profile, I was really torn. Some of the suggestions were very good. They were rational and made sense. They just didn’t feel right, though.
Relegation
My grandfather loved soccer. His father was an official referee in the Soviet Union (there were remarkably few of them in the 1930’s. Maybe most of them were in the Gulag for bad calls?).
But in America, there are lots of sports. And he liked many of them.
He taught me about the game, though. I remember being ten or so and kicking penalty shots against him in the goal. He was wearing pleated pants and a button up collared shirt.