Ambiguous, Clear, and Sprawling by Design

I’ve been revising some pieces of writing during the past few weeks in my spare time. By “spare time,” I mean that I’ve been sitting my butt down and limiting distractions as much as possible. As a writer with a day job that doesn’t allow me time to write what I want (i.e., like anybody [...]

The Great Chain of Being in Contact

My friend Jane posted this on my Facebook wall: “Had a lovely imaginary conversation with you yesterday, which made me think it’s time for a real one.” Which brought to mind categories of conversations.
Face-to-Face: Or F2F. This kind of conversation happens in real time. You get to experience the facial expressions and gestures of the [...]

Going Around the Block to Get Next Door

1:29 p.m.
AAAAHHHHH! Everybody and everything are in my way today. I wanted nothing more than to get to the coffeehouse and do some writing. On my way out the door it started to rain and so one of the dogs freaked out a little, probably because she expected thunder. I had to wait until she [...]

Stuck-uck-uck-uck-uck

Transitions flummox me. I sit there. Metaphorically, physically, emotionally, whateverly, I get stuck for a while.
In an elementary school science class, I learned about inertia. To put it in a less-than-nuanced way, inertia means what’s going keeps going until it’s stopped; what’s stopped remains stopped until something gets it going.
Inertia should not be a problem [...]

My 2008 List, in No Particular Order

I love year-end lists. I hate year-end lists. It’s helpful to take time to reflect, and I invariably learn about music, books, etc. that I would have otherwise missed. But there’s also something lazy about this list-making.
There’s an assumption that artistic achievement is obvious and measurable, even though most critics’ arguments for the greatness of [...]