There’s a quiet from my front porch in Spanish Springs that’s not silent, not with the birds tuning up in the trees and screen doors that creak like they’ve got something to say, but the kind that makes you feel like the wind is eavesdropping. Sitting on my porch last evening, sipping old coffee out…

Eighteen years of age was the first time and only time I ever hitchhiked–and for a slice of pie. Now, that might sound foolish to some—maybe even a little dangerous—but back in the summer of ’78, out on the winding turns of U.S. 101–danger came limited to the occasional skunk. It was for a piece…

Over the past month, I have been exploring all the free AI platforms available, with the idea that if I don’t learn to use them, they’ll learn to use me. To that end, I have allowed each one to read what I have written and offer critiques on my work. Yesterday, as I prepared to…

It rained last night—the kind of rain that carries a perfume. Earthy and clean, like the sky rinsing off its dusty apron. Around here, when it rains, everything feels a little more alive. The pasture gets its color back, the fence posts swell up and creak like remembering something, and the bugs, Lord bless them,…

CNN published an article on May 31, 2025, titled “The ‘r-word’ is back. How a slur became renormalized,” detailing the resurgence of the word “retard” in online and public discourse. The piece highlights influential figures such as Joe Rogan, who called its return a “great cultural victory” on his April 10, 2025, podcast episode, and…

It was the summer I turned thirteen—the same summer I figured out my dad could outlast time itself, and probably had, more than once. Now, my dad wasn’t the fastest man alive. He could make a sloth look jittery. But he got things done, and he got them done right. He had a steady, plodding…

Five years ago last January, I came home to two things I didn’t expect to find in the same twenty-four hours–my wife, officially retired after thirty years of wrangling chaos at a sandwich shop, and a layoff notice tucked in a cardboard box filled with my stuff. We were quiet, not because I had nothing…

There are three things you didn’t do in Grandma Lola’s house, and she’d tell you straight as a preacher on Sunday–don’t stick your finger in an electric light socket, don’t stick your finger in a garbage disposal, and don’t ever stick your finger in her blackberry pies. The first two made sense to a ten-year-old…

In the Northern Nevada desert, where the sagebrush whispers secrets to the wind, I take my two dogs, Buddy and Honey, for a walk some evenings. The sky’s a watercolor wash of pinks and purples, and the air smells like dust and possibility. Buddy, a lanky mutt with ears like old radio dishes, trots ahead,…

Seppuku mood strikes, Second’s gone, just Cat and X, Ramen dulls the blade. Hari-kari calls, Cubs lose again, heart’s the score, Wrigley mourns the fall. Harry Caray sings, Cary Grant’s charm lifts the gloom, Katana’s hope rises.