I could be doing anything in the world right now. The same device logging these words is capable of receiving, through its magical roots in the digital earth, enough stimulation to occupy me for a thousand lifetimes. Even now, there are several of those stimulants beckoning me, like […]
The air is drenched with odors of chlorine and perspiration, seasoned with a tang of Sharpie marker. One such marker shuffles across the back of a cherub-faced girl two bleacher rows below me. The girl’s mother watches the scoreboard clock with one eye while minding her own […]
With shortness of breath, I’ll explain the infinite. How rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist. Sleeping At Last –– Saturn My son uttered a set of words the other day that seemed too old for his eleven-year-old lips –– “Every day, I get up at […]
On the wall of my kitchen there is a clock. I bought it at IKEA sixteen years ago, back when everyone thought IKEA was kind of cool. The clock has been a faithful keeper of time these sixteen years, though that’s a simple job when you think about […]
I turn forty one today. For the second year in a row, I’ve crafted myself a birthday present in the form of a story, written from the POV of a character who shares my same birthday. Most of my characters are loosely based on people I know in […]
The urge to mark epochs in our lives is irresistible, isn’t it? I think it’s a good thing. Now more than ever, I think it’s a good thing; after all, is there anyone who would disagree with the notion that time seems to be trucking along faster than […]
“Change alone is unchanging.” This old axiom is true scientifically, and it’s often easy to see. Technology changes, becomes faster and more convenient and less expensive at the same time. With technology, our relationships change from personal to digital––becoming much like reproductions of what were once authentic art […]
Two golden discs of tissue paper float to the carpeted floor of my hotel room. I’ve heard it said that our heartiest laughter is the kind that is shared with others, but I manage a genuine chuckle, despite my being alone. Gold doubloons for everybody! The golden discs […]
You can’t expect to change the world with every sentence you write. It may be too much to expect you can change even a single heart with a thing you write. But we don’t write to change things any more than we sleep to wake up in the […]
I’m reading the third book in Brandon Sanderson’s The Reckoners series. In these books, Sanderson describes a version of our world in which a mysterious orb one day appears in the sky and miraculously grants superhuman abilities to a percentage of the world’s population. Some people develop […]