The Old Blog in the Desert

When I married my wife, I did it for all the right reasons. She had wit sharp enough to slice through small talk, beauty that could hush a room, and a charm that made waiters remember our names long after we forgot theirs. But I also married her for her personality—singular, I thought at the time.

It turns out I got the variety pack.

She didn’t mention that in the vows. She stood there looking like a dream in lace, repeating after the minister with a steady voice and twinkling eyes. Not once did she say, “I do—except when I don’t, depending on which of my six alter egos is steering the ship that day.”

Now, don’t misunderstand. I’m not complaining. I’ve grown to love the unpredictability. It keeps the days interesting, like a weather forecast that says, “Surprise!”

Mornings often start with “The Planner.” This version of her wakes up already three steps into the day.

She’s bright-eyed, efficient, and full of bullet points. Before I finished my first cup of coffee, she told me what we were doing next Saturday, what I should wear, and what the dog’s spiritual goals were for the week.

By lunch, “The Philosopher,” greets me. It likes to sit with a sandwich and ponder the mysteries of the universe: why socks vanish in the dryer or whether the squirrels in our yard are unionizing. I nod and chew, knowing better than to challenge her logic.

She’s read a lot of books.

Midafternoon can bring out “The Critic.” She’s not mean—just observant.

She’ll gently point out that my favorite T-shirt has holes, my truck needs washing, and maybe, just maybe, my storytelling has a tendency to wander. I thank her for the feedback and try to look busy until she turns into someone less editorial.

Then, come evening, I often meet “The Romantic.” She lights candles for no reason, plays old love songs, and tells me how lucky she is, just as I’m trying to unclog the sink with a coat hanger. She doesn’t care.

I could be ankle-deep in a plumbing disaster, and she’d still say, “You’re the most handsome man with a wrench I’ve ever seen.”

And I believe her.

There’s also “The Jokester,” who shows up after a glass of wine and a sitcom rerun. She does impressions, terrible ones, and laughs until she snorts.

She once pretended to be a French chef while making boxed macaroni and cheese. I clapped. What else can you do?

And then—on rare, quiet nights—there’s “The Real One.” The one who curls up beside me, sighing into my shoulder and saying nothing at all. She doesn’t need to. She’s all of them, and none of them, and somehow more than that.

Marriage, I’ve come to believe, is less about understanding and more about appreciating. Like those sampler boxes of chocolate—you don’t always know what you’re going to bite into, but you keep coming back for another, just in case it’s your favorite.

So yes, I married her for her personality. It’s just that I didn’t know it was a six-pack.

AHave you ever had one of those days when the world is just a little too ridiculous to ignore? The kind where your morning coffee hasn’t even cooled down, and already the internet is shouting, “Bondi says there never was an Epstein client list.”

But here is my solution. I’m a fan of National Treasure. The first one had everything I like in a movie–dusty libraries, forgotten maps, Revolutionary secrets, and Nicolas Cage talking like every sentence is the most consequential sentence ever uttered by man.

The second one? A little wilder, but still fun. He kidnaps the President—not in a hostile way, more like “let’s go explore a tunnel under Mount Rushmore, sir.” And the President’s just like, “Well, alright.”

But now, if this third movie rumor holds water, we’re trading in ancient scrolls and Liberty Bells for something far spicier–the Epstein client list.

I don’t know about you, but I can already picture it.

Scene opens with Nicolas Cage whispering dramatically in the National Archives, “The truth isn’t lost. It’s hidden… in the President’s panic room.”

Then he yanks down a painting of George Washington riding a velociraptor (because why not?) to reveal a retinal scanner that only responds to someone who’s both a Freemason and once owned a copy of the Declaration of Independence. And of course, our man qualifies.

It all sounds a little far-fetched—except that with Nicolas Cage, somehow, it isn’t.

Now, I imagine halfway through the movie, there’s a chase scene through the White House kitchen, where he slips on a pat of butter while dodging Secret Service agents. He slides past the Roosevelt Room, right into the Lincoln Bedroom, shouting, “Abe would want me to finish this!” before diving headfirst into a laundry chute that just so happens to lead directly into the vault.

Of course, there’ll be a sidekick—probably someone named Chip or Liberty—with a PhD in 18th-century encryption and a podcast about aliens. The comedic relief, naturally, is the National Security Advisor played by Steve Buscemi, who keeps mumbling, “I told ‘em not to store the list next to the Truman bowling alley.”

Now, I don’t claim to know what’s on that infamous list, and I’m not trying to start any conspiracies. But I do think if anyone could get to the bottom of it, it’d be Nicolas Cage with a flashlight, a half-torn clue from a cereal box, and a whole lot of whisper-yelling.

Would I watch it?

You bet your powdered wig I would. With a bucket of popcorn and a look of stunned admiration on my face. Because sometimes, you have to lean into the madness and enjoy the ride.

And if Nicolas Cage does steal the list? I hope he finds a second vault underneath it—one filled with Jimmy Hoffa’s wallet, Elvis’s gym membership card, and the original recipe for Crystal Pepsi.

Hey, it’s National Treasure III. Anything’s possible.

You give someone a taste of their own medicine, and suddenly, you’re the villain in their made-for-TV movie. They act like you laced their morning coffee with arsenic when all you did was let the mirror talk back.

I remember this fella I used to work with—let’s call him Larry because that was his name. Larry had the kind of personality you could sand paint with.

Real abrasive, barking at folks, calling them names that didn’t quite rise to the level of profanity but danced around the edges. Larry was the kind of guy who’d call you “brain-dead” for using the copier wrong, then jam it himself five minutes later and blame it on you.

For a long time, we all just let it slide. Small office, small town—rocking the boat meant everyone got wet.

But one Tuesday morning, after Larry called me a “dimwit in khakis” because I parked in his unofficial, unmarked parking spot next to the dumpster, mind you, I decided maybe it was time Larry had a sampling of the stew he’d been ladling out.

The next day, when he spilled coffee all over the report he was supposed to deliver to our supervisor, I looked at him and said, “Nice work, Einstein. Real brain trust move.”

You’d have thought I slapped his mama. He blinked at me like I’d spoken in tongues. “What’d you say?”

I leaned in, grinning. “Just saying you might want to take that Mensa application off your desk for now.”

That was it. The man sulked the rest of the day.

He didn’t call a soul stupid. Larry didn’t even insult Margie’s homemade potato salad at lunch. He sat there chewing and stewing, nursing his wounded ego like a baby bird fallen out of its nest.

Later, I overheard him in the break room, telling someone I’d “crossed a line.” Said I was mean-spirited.

That’s when it hit me–some folks are real generous with their cruelty, right up until they have to sit at the table and eat what they’ve been serving. They can dish it out, but Lord, help them if it comes back around on a lazy Susan.

That’s the funny thing about those kinds of people. They walk around with a spray bottle of vinegar, misting everyone else’s day, and then act shocked when a drop gets in their own eyes.

I’m not saying revenge is noble, but sometimes mirrored behavior is the only language some folks understand. You show them what it feels like, and they want to talk about boundaries and respect—two words they’ve never used unless they were spelling them wrong in an angry email.

In the end, Larry stopped calling people names for a while. He took up crossword puzzles instead.

He said they helped him “channel his wit more productively.” And I suppose that’s fine, as long as he doesn’t start calling others four-letter words again.

If he does, well—I’ve got some fresh medicine ready that tastes just like a Size 8.

I’ve been awake since about 2:30. Not by choice, mind you, but due to insomnia. Mary had to be out the door before dawn for work, and once she stirred, so did I.

It’s Sunday morning, so I shuffled into the kitchen, poured myself a strong cup of coffee, and invited Buddy and Honey out onto the porch with me. Buddy was all for it—did a little tippy-tap dance at the door like he was auditioning for a dance number.

Honey, on the other hand, gave me a look only a pit bull can give, somewhere between pity and disgust. “Are you friggin’ kidding?” her eyes said, before she flopped her head back down with the kind of dramatic sigh teenagers are known for.

So out Buddy and I went, into the quiet that isn’t quite quiet. Mike, who lives directly west of us, had his diesel truck running. He was loading it with gear, probably heading out for one of his weekend wilderness jaunts.

I’ve never asked where he goes. I figure if he wanted folks to know, he’d say something.

Across the street and one house over—kitty-corner, as Grandma used to say—Bob was already watering his garden. Now, we’re on an even-odd watering schedule in this neighborhood, and today wasn’t his day.

But Bob waters every day. He holds the hose at just the right angle to make it look like he’s relieving himself on his flowers. I don’t think he does it on purpose, but if he does, it’s an oddly specific rebellion.

Then there’s Kate, directly to my east. I couldn’t see her—her driveway’s full of cars—but I knew she was on her porch because I caught the scent of her cigarette drifting on the breeze. That first drag of the day, mingled with fresh coffee, seems to be her version of a hymn.

Buddy lay in the grass, eyes peeled for the woman with the little white dog. She comes by like clockwork, and when she does, Buddy trembles with excitement.

He doesn’t bark, but he whines and wags and tries to be charming. The woman never waves, never smiles, and certainly never lets her poodle princess come over to say hello.

Still, Buddy stays put, a good boy through and through. Then, like clockwork, he forgets she was even there—his memory as short as the goldfish swimming around in our neighbor’s little koi pond.

Once she passes, the street starts to quiet down. Mike drives off, Bob wraps up his rogue watering session, and I hear Kate’s screen door slap shut.

That’s our cue. Coffee cup empty, I kick off my slippers and we begin our strange little ritual—twenty minutes of prancing around the yard. He mirrors me step for step, not because he has to, but because I’m doing it, and he figures it must be fun.

The truth is, I do it to fight the neuropathy in my feet. Got a nasty case of frostbite back when I was twenty. Walking barefoot in the cool morning grass helps.

It’s counterintuitive, like a lot of things in my life. It doesn’t make a whole hill of sense, but it works.

Afterwards, I put the slippers back on and we head inside for my second cup of coffee. Buddy trots in behind me, already thinking about breakfast.

And I sit at the table, staring out the window, wondering if this is what retirement will feel like—coffee, good dogs, and just enough nonsense to keep it interesting.

This morning, I declared war on burnout. Not the kind with torches and pitchforks, mind you. No, this was a quieter sort of rebellion—the kind that starts with a second cup of coffee, sipped real slow while watching a lizard do push-ups on the porch railing.

See, the world wants you moving fast. Faster than your legs—or your brain—were ever built to go. I swear, if I don’t answer a text in five minutes, people start sending search parties.

But this morning, I left the phone inside and made friends with the breeze instead. That breeze knew something I didn’t. It whispered it through the wind chimes: You don’t have to outrun the day.

It’s not that I’m lazy. I’ve hauled hay, dug fence posts, and raised a kid who once tried to microwave a CD to see what would happen. It sparked, and so did my temper. I’ve done my share of hustling, but the truth is not everything meaningful comes from motion.

Some of the most important moments I’ve ever lived were the quiet ones. Like the time my son and I sat in the bed of the truck eating gas station burritos after his baseball team got walloped 18-2. He didn’t want to talk, so we just listened to the cicadas and watched the sun quit for the day.

Eventually, he said, “I’m not mad we lost. I’m just glad we’re here.”

That right there—that’s presence. You don’t get those moments if you’re racing through life with your tail on fire.

So today, I chose slowness.

I waved at my neighbor. He waved back. Neither of us looked like we were going anywhere important, which made it feel all the more sacred.

I even pulled out the old rocking chair that lives in the back room and gave it a good creak or two. That chair doesn’t care about deadlines. It just rocks. Forward and back. Like it’s praying.

And in that stillness, I started to remember that life doesn’t have to be a race. It can be a song. It can be a slow dance in bare feet on warm boards. It can be laughter in the kitchen while the toast burns.

Burnout wants you fried to a crisp, marching to the drumbeat of somebody else’s panic. But you can say no. You can choose a different pace.

I did today.

And I’m better for it.

So, if you need permission to slow down, let me give it to you. Be still. Watch the sky change colors and call that progress. Burnout won’t know what to do with you.

But your soul? Your soul will thank you with a smile that shows up around the eyes and doesn’t need a single emoji to be understood.

I went to an antique auction yesterday, and several people bid on me.

Now, before you think I’ve taken up tap-dancing in my twilight years or started a side hustle as a novelty garden gnome, let me explain. I wasn’t supposed to be for sale. I just sat down in the wrong chair, and things got out of hand.

See, I was tagging along with my neighbor Martha, who collects things like Depression glass, Civil War buttons, and husbands. She’s on her third, I think, but only the second one to have all his teeth.

Martha told me to come for the “entertainment,” which I figured meant folks waving paddles around and overpaying for butter churns. I didn’t expect to be the entertainment.

The auction was in the back of an old feed store, which still smelled faintly of alfalfa and mouse panic. They’d cleared out the sacks and set up rows of folding chairs.

I wandered around, admiring a cracked phonograph and a velvet painting of a very nervous-looking Elvis, then decided to sit down and rest my knees. That was my first mistake.

It turns out the auctioneer was auctioning off the chair I sat in—an “authentic 19th-century Victorian oak with carved claw feet,” which was a fancy way of saying it was wobbly and had probably killed a few unsuspecting sitters in its time.

I must’ve blended in well because the next thing I know, the auctioneer’s rattling off numbers like a caffeinated auction rooster, “Do I hear twenty? Twenty-five? Thirty from the lady in lavender!”

Now, Martha was wearing lavender, and she had that glint in her eye. I gave her a look meant to say, “Don’t you dare,” but it must’ve read, “Why yes, I am available and reasonably priced,” because she raised her paddle again.

The auctioneer shouted, “We’re at forty! Forty-five?” and a man in suspenders on the other side of the room nodded solemnly like he was bidding on a prized dairy cow, which I was beginning to feel like. Next thing I know, it’s up to seventy-five dollars, and I’m trying to stand up and declare that I ain’t included with the furniture, but the chair’s has me hostage—one of its claw feet had snagged my pant cuff.

“Sold!” the auctioneer bellowed. “To the lady in lavender for eighty-five dollars!”

There was a smattering of applause, and a few folks clapped me on the shoulder like I’d just won the blue ribbon at the fair. Martha leaned over and whispered, “Best deal I’ve ever made. You come with stories and don’t take up too much space.”

I eventually got untangled from the chair, though it took the help of a man who claimed to be a retired rodeo clown and carried a pocketknife big enough to field dress a moose. I offered to refund Martha her eighty-five bucks, but she waved me off and said, “Nah, I’ll just write you off as a charitable donation.”

So now I’m technically an antique, which might explain the creaking joints and my affinity for butterscotch candies. And while I’m not for sale—yet—I’ve started eyeing my furniture with a little more suspicion.

Next time, I’m bringing a folding chair and a “Not for Auction” sign to hang around my neck, just in case.

My childhood was 20 percent Kool-Aid and 80 percent unsupervised danger, and I’m not sure if I turned out all right or if I’m just too old to notice the damage.

We made Kool-Aid with the sort of scientific precision that would make a lab technician twitch. First, dump a packet—usually red, never grape—into the largest plastic pitcher we had. Then, pour in a mound of sugar that could’ve doubled as a sand dune. The instructions called for a cup, but in our kitchen, a “cup” was a loose suggestion, like “maybe don’t stick that fork in the outlet.”

Stir it with whatever was closest: a butter knife, a wooden spoon, sometimes your hand. We drank it warm if we were in a hurry, and we were always in a hurry.

The danger part? Well, that was just the rest of the day.

We rode our bikes without helmets, pedal brakes, and zero awareness. Our bikes rattled as if held together by bubble gum and a prayer.

We built ramps out of scrap plywood and whatever bricks we could liberate from someone’s yard—sorry, Mrs. Keating—and we’d launch ourselves into the air like Evel Knievel without a backup plan. Landing was optional. Stitches weren’t.

There was an old field across from our house full of high grass, and that was our kingdom. We built forts out of rotting boards and rusted nails–that we straightened with creek rocks.

One summer, we found a sun-bleached refrigerator someone had dumped in the creek bed. Naturally, we turned it into a time machine.

My brother climbed inside and shut the door, and it was only later—much later, when Mom got wind of it and nearly fainted—that we learned old refrigerators don’t open from the inside.

He was fine. Hot, sweaty, and convinced he’d traveled three weeks into the future, but fine.

Our parents, bless’em, operated under the “If I don’t hear screaming, they’re probably okay” policy of supervision.

We came home when the streetlights buzzed on, covered in dirt, scabs, and the sticky film of cherry Kool-Aid that stained our lips like clown makeup. You couldn’t wash that stuff off; you had to live through it until it faded naturally, like a bad decision.

I once tried to make fireworks. A few strike-anywhere matches, a toilet paper tube, and “some kind of powder” from the garage. It didn’t explode, but it did catch fire and burned a hole in Dad’s workbench. I blamed the neighbor kid, who wasn’t even there, and got grounded anyway.

Looking back, I realize childhood was less about safety and more about pure dumb luck. We survived on instinct and the grace of distracted angels.

We didn’t wear sunscreen, seatbelts, or sense. We drank from hoses, got chased by hornets, and played hide-and-seek in the dark like we had a death wish.

But man, Kool-Aid never tasted better than it did on a day like that. So, if you ever wonder why I flinch at the sound of fireworks or why I keep Band-Aids in every drawer of the house, it’s because I had a childhood that was sugar water and “What were you thinking?”

And honestly? I wouldn’t trade a single scab.

There was a time when 25 cents could measure the value of the world.

Now, I don’t mean to sound like a relic—you know, one of those grumbly old fossils you find on a front porch swing warning kids not to grow up too fast—but I do remember when being rich meant standing in front of the penny candy counter with a quarter clutched in your sweaty little hand. And let me tell you, that quarter felt like Fort Knox melted down and pressed into a single coin just for me.

My favorite place was the Woodland Villa, a narrow little shop that smelled like a mixture of bacon grease, mothballs, and adventure. It had a squeaky front door that slammed with the authority of a gavel, and every time it closed, you knew justice got served—someone either came in with good money or left with a brown paper sack full of jelly beans.

The candy counter was a glass case of pure joy, low enough that kids could rest their elbows on it and stare, mouths slightly open, like art critics considering a masterpiece. Behind that glass were rows of root beer barrels, licorice ropes, wax bottles filled with juice, and little dots of sugar glued to strips of paper, like someone thought a receipt ought to be delicious.

The store owner, Mrs. DeVol, had the patience of a saint and the eyebrows of a wizard. He stood behind the counter with her hands folded, watching me calculate what combination of sweetness would yield the best return on investment.

“Alright, what’ll it be today?” she’d ask as if I were placing a Wall Street trade instead of debating between sour balls and a strip of Zotz.

“I’ll take three of those, four of these, and uh…how many Swedish Fish can I get for seven cents?”

Mrs. DeVol didn’t need a calculator. That woman could do candy math in her head like a Vegas card shark. And she always gave a little nod of approval when I spent the whole quarter as if I’d graduated with honors in Sugar Economics.

There was no bag too small or pocket too shallow for that haul. You walked out of that store wealthy—a capitalist prince among the barefoot summer kids.

You might even share a lemonhead, or two, to prove you were benevolent in your newfound affluence. The walk home was always slow, partly because you didn’t want it to end and partly because you were unwrapping candies with the efficiency of a raccoon at a campsite.

Sticky fingers, sticky face, sticky heart.

These days, a quarter won’t buy you a second glance, let alone 25 pieces of joy. You feed it to a parking meter or a vending machine, and it vanishes without so much as a thank you.

A quarter may not buy much anymore, but it still feels like treasure, and that’s because once upon a time, it was.

I mowed my lawn at 3:30.

No, not 3:30 in the afternoon—though I admit that would make more sense and raise fewer eyebrows from passing joggers and local law enforcement. I mean 3:30 in the morning, under the bleary light of the porch bulb and a moon so faint it looked like it had given up halfway through the night shift.

Why, you ask? Because my neighbor, bless his patriotic little heart, decided that the Fourth of July fireworks should not end on the Fourth, nor the Fifth, but rather should echo well into the Sixth, at precisely 1:00 a.m., when every sleeping soul was beginning to doze into a respectable REM cycle.

It wasn’t your standard-issue backyard light show either. These were the kind of fireworks that make your windows tremble and your dogs seriously reconsider their loyalty.

You know the ones—those booming, searing artillery shells that sound like someone dropped a flaming piano into a dumpster full of sheet metal. Every pop and sizzle seemed to rattle a memory loose from my childhood, including the one where I accidentally lit my uncle’s pant leg on fire with a sparkler.

I lay in bed listening to the last few bottle rockets whistle their way to wherever bad decisions go to die, and I thought, Fine. If you get to celebrate your freedom, I’ll celebrate mine.

So I celebrated by firing up the lawnmower.

Now, if you’ve never mowed your lawn at 3:30 a.m., I can’t honestly recommend it. The dew makes the grass stick to everything—shoes, socks, the mower blade, the vague sense of dignity you once had. And it turns out, every moth in the county thinks your porch light is the hottest nightclub in town.

But something unexpected happened out there in the dark. Somewhere between the back fence and the flower beds, I started to feel better. It was quiet, finally, just the rhythmic whirr of the mower and the soft chirp of crickets wondering what kind of lunatic trims the grass before sunrise.

I even saw a possum lumber by, giving me a look that said, You okay, man? And maybe I wasn’t entirely.

Perhaps I was still a little tired, a little grumpy, and a little petty. But now my lawn is trimmed, my legs are mosquito-bitten, and my temper, a few degrees cooler than it had been when I first stomped out of bed and into my work boots.

Around 3:52, as I rolled the mower back into the garage, I saw the light in my neighbor’s window flip on. I waved, real friendly-like. I’m sure it looked more sinister than sweet at that hour, especially with my bedhead sticking up like I got struck by lightning.

But that was my version of fireworks. And a celebration of lawn justice.

He gets his fun, I get mine. And perhaps next year, he’ll think twice before launching a grand finale at 1:00 a.m., or maybe, I’ll plant a row of hedges and invest in some industrial-grade earplugs.

Either way, I think I won this round.

When I was a boy growing up in Klamath, I tried to give directions to a local elder and ended up getting corrected in a language that predates Columbus, Plymouth Rock, and every one of my schoolbooks. That was the day I learned to pronounce Tlamati instead of Klamath, and I realized the river had a name long before we began building bridges across it.

We didn’t learn Yurok in school, mind you. Back then, the curriculum was heavy on the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the California Gold Rush and light on anything that happened this side of the Mississippi before 1870.

But on the playground, in fishing boats, and around backyard fire pits, those old words still floated up like mist off the river. My first Yurok word was Ch’eeshah–dog.

I learned it from an actual dog, or rather, from my friend Sandy, who hollered it every time his pup went tearing off after a squirrel.

“Ch’eeshah!” Sandy would shout.

And that dog would freeze mid-sprint, ears cocked like satellite dishes, and come bounding back. I thought it was magic. Later, I learned it was discipline, tradition, and the kind of bond built over generations—something we never quite grasped, no matter how many hot dogs I sacrificed.

Then came Sa’ahal, which I took to mean “village,” but quickly learned meant something much richer. It was the name for a place along the river, not just any village, but one that belonged to the river.

The way they say it, Sa’ahal sounds like a breeze pushing through the trees. You don’t just live in Sa’ahal. You belong to it.

That made me rethink every “Welcome” sign I’d ever gone past.

And then there’s Re-kwoi, which I mispronounced for years as “Wreck-wah.” But no, it’s Re-kwoi, where the river finally meets the Pacific Ocean.

It’s a place where salmon turn from silver to red and begin their final swim. I remember standing on the bluff as a boy, wind whipping around my ears, feeling like I could see Japan if I squinted hard enough–and thinking, this is the edge of something holy.

Somewhere between Ch’eeshah and Re-kwoi, I started hearing the river speak. Not in words, exactly, but in a rhythm and pulse that begin to line up with the beat of my heart.

That’s a poetic way of saying I spent a lot of time skipping rocks and failing to catch steelhead, but I like to think the river taught me something anyway. Nowadays, I can still pronounce those few Yurok words, and I try to pass them along when the chance arises.

It’s a small thing, I know—four words, some memories, a little reverence. But in a world where everything gets renamed, paved over, or turned into a campground, hanging onto those old words feels like tying a string between the past and present.

Not to hold on too tight—just enough so we don’t forget who whispered to the river first. And if that ain’t worth remembering, well, I reckon nothing is.