Susie and I had the gift of a Christmas morning to ourselves this year. The kids come tonight with all their chaos and mess and great life energy, but for now the house is peaceful. We played with the puppies and then walked out to the “back forty” to feed the big dogs. It’s a [...]
Archive for December, 2008
Christmas Morning
Posted in Commentary, Memoir, Observational Prose, tagged bagels, Christmas, memories on December 25, 2008 | 1 Comment »
What the Winter Solstice and Great Pasta Dishes Have in Common
Posted in Commentary, tagged gardening, garlic, holidays, Winter Solstice on December 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I want to do something to commemorate the Winter Solstice this Sunday. I don’t necessarily feel the need to dance naked around an oak tree under a full moon, but I have thought for several years in a row now that it would be nice to acknowledge the day in some way.
It’s not an [...]
Thistle
Posted in Poetry, tagged boundaries, mental illness, painful relationships, Poetry, thistle on December 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I love to see a field of thistle
from a distance. Get too close
and you will bleed. But someone
has to chop it down before it
goes to seed and spreads its drifting,
downy, dangerous self into a
field of corn or beans or maybe
where the cattle feed. It has not
many friends except the butterfies and
bees. And I am not [...]
M(i)LK
Posted in Commentary, tagged Gay rights, Gus Van Sant, Harvey Milk, Milk, movies, Politics, Sean Penn on December 10, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
On Sunday, Susie and I drove across town to the one movie theatre within probably 150 miles that will show “controversial” films. We had made the trek back when Brokeback Mountain was in theatres and would have done so for Religulous, but apparently the latter was too much even for the Green Hills Regal. This [...]
Just Throwing Another Yule Log on the Fire
Posted in Commentary, tagged Greetings, holiday, Merry Christmas, mistletoe, pagan on December 8, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I feel like Nostradamus. As if on cue after my most recent blog ”Happy Yule” (below) a Merry Christmas e-mail debate broke out among the faculty of the college where I teach. This yuletide uproar began with the benign announcement of the annual “Holiday Luncheon.” The first e-mail response was offered with a scowl and a growl. (Hint: [...]
Happy Yule!
Posted in Commentary, tagged Christmas, Greetings, Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, Solstice on December 4, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Last year about this time I was sitting in the dentist’s chair getting my teeth cleaned. Or perhaps it should more appropriately be called the dental hygienist’s chair. I only see my dentist for two minutes every six months when he pops in after my cleaning to ask if I’m having any problems with my [...]
The Last Age of Innocence
Posted in Memoir, tagged cussing, fourth grade, innocence, Memoir on December 3, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
In 1973 I was nine years old. It was a time of banana-seat bicycles, The Brady Bunch, and that bad, bad Leroy Brown. I remember the latter especially because Tracy Shapow and I would play the song over and over again on her portable record player in her garage and take turns “singing” the lead. [...]
Curriculum Vitae
Posted in Poetry, tagged Career, jobs, Poet, resume on December 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
My first job was selling shoes.
Sixteen years old.
Needed gas money.
Bought a cowboy hat with my first check.
Went to college.
Started part-time at a hotel.
Went to full-time when I quit college.
Thought I knew everything I needed to know.
Worked in fast food,
then as a bank teller,
then started waiting tables.
That lasted awhile.
Shifted into bartending.
More prestigious.
Did that through school.
(Realized I [...]
Happy Now Year!
Posted in Commentary, tagged Contentment, happiness, New Year, purpose, resolutions on December 30, 2008 | 1 Comment »
I have a New Year’s tradition of great melancholia that would seem as etched in ritualistic stone as high mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. At this time every year, I swim in thoughts of days gone by and wrap myself in the blankets of memories, both happy and sad. I am “Auld Lang Syne” personified. [...]
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