“Life Can Be So Fair, Let It Go On And on…”

It started on some random Saturday night in December of 2004 watching Austin City Limits. Some band I’d never heard of called Spoon was on the stage playing songs I’d never heard. The band looked cool; swagger for miles and they seemed to know how to use the stage to their advantage. But as cool […]

First Mow Of The Season, Missing My Oldest, More Middle-Aged Pain

This past weekend was the official first mow of the summer season 2021. Honestly, I should have officially mowed about two weeks ago but just hadn’t gotten around to it. I climbed the roof, blew the pine needles off, as well as cleaned all the gutters. My new roof looks new once again. Then it […]

19th Nervous Breakdown(Going On 20)

It was a weird week. Hell, it’s been a weird last few months if I’m being honest with myself. The pandemic uncovered a lot of latent anxiety in me that I didn’t know how close to the surface it actually was. Surprising moments of panic and worry that would hang out for a couple days. […]

“trapped in the amber of the moment”

First day of school 2020. We’ve all been pretty much locked down since March of this year. College and high school spring breaks turned into extended breaks turned into indefinite isolation which morphed into 2019-2020 school year ends in your living room. Thanks, and God bless. It was not what we or anyone else had […]

Ghost of a Dog

Out of the blue yesterday I thought about a dog named Helmut. This wasn’t some random dog name, or some random dog. Helmut was our dog from 1999 to 2009. We’d brought Helmut into our home in August of 1999, two years after my wife and I gotten our very first dog Dieter. Dieter was […]

A Little Night Music

I never listened to music when I went to bed as a kid. I don’t remember wearing headphones with tunes blasting into my ears as I floated off to dream land. I don’t even recall having a music box playing lullabies as a little one, either. What I do remember was using a fan to […]

College Visits and Existential Crisis

Had the last couple of days off. My oldest is home for spring break and I wanted to be home so I could hang out with her. It’s not like I had two days of fun and exciting activities planned or anything, but I was at least here and not at work. Thursday she went […]

Memory Upgrade

So sometimes your memory betrays you. Okay, most of the time your memory betrays you. Like for example, how you may remember an argument with an old friend that caused a riff between the two of you. When you finally have that heart to heart and discuss things you realize you remembered things all wrong. […]

Snorting Pumpkin Spice(and other not-so good ideas for Fall)

It’s finally here. That time of year when hoodies and jeans are a staple of the Midwest fashion diet. Sure, there’s some that try to hurry that fashion trend into regular rotation at the beginning of September, but they’re the ones sweating walking from their car to the grocery because they saw dew on the […]

Crappy Candy : A Guide To What Not To Give Out On Halloween

It’s been a week since Halloween blew into our lives in the form of a wet, dreary evening. Still, the weather wasn’t going to dissuade the boys and girls from trekking through past-their-prime neighborhoods and sopping front yards in order to get those goods. Yep, the treats in that old Halloween standard rallying cry “Trick […]