“Not MY Son”

There was a kid on my block that used to really piss us off. He wasn’t part of our regular group. He was a couple of years younger than the youngest of us (me), presumably enough of an age difference that he just didn’t quite fit. We generally avoided him and his friend, a nasty […]

Monday Musing: No Real Theme

Starting is always the hardest part. Do I ease into the post with an introductory paragraph, or dive right in? It’s supposed to be fun. Over the last few weeks I’ve been reading Stacy McKitrick’s agonizings over the Pittsburgh Penguins’ playoff fortunes. She’s up! She’s down! She’s up! She’s down! (Today, she’s down) And as […]

Musical Monday: Concert!

Having a dog comes with many benefits. The downside? They get old. Our pup is twelve this year, and as she gets older, she gets more neurotic and definitely more entitled. This morning she woke me up at ten past five so I could take her out. But what I think she most wanted was […]

We Have “Leaf” Toff!

Oh, that’s a bad title, isn’t it? Yes, it is. And I’ll use it again on my personal Facebook page. I’m not too proud. Last week, while mowing the lawn, I checked in on the fabled chestnut tree and saw that it appeared to be doing nothing. Well, not entirely nothing. The buds looked round […]

Wandering in the Fog

The beauty of being a wingman is that you can start with an empty page and the briefest glimmer of an idea–it doesn’t have to be an overarching idea for a novel, either; it can be a character or a single scene with almost no context at all–and start writing. At the end of the […]

Monday Musing

Another Monday morning that catches me rather bleary-eyed and unprepared. Second cup of coffee is on its way in and I’m not much better off than when I got up! -Despite having to work through almost all of my Saturday, attending a memorial service for a really good guy I knew through work, having to […]

Squeezing Time

Last week was one of those weeks. Each year, the organization I work for runs a garage sale. The purpose of said sale is for people to find new homes for old items that would otherwise either go moldy in a basement or garage or end up in a landfill. It also helps raise a […]

In the DNA?

Did he steal his fate or earn it?Was he force-fed, did he learn it?*  Anyone with even a passing interest in the Beatles and/or John Lennon probably thought the same thing I did when hearing “Valotte” — the first single from Julian Lennon’s debut album — back in the fall of 1984: “Holy shit, he […]

Easter Eggs

If you’re a video gamer, regularly watch DVDs, or even just a user of computers (and who isn’t at this point?), then you’re probably familiar with “Easter Eggs.” These are hidden bits of coding that reveal or unlock some special feature or joke: maybe an extra level in a game; a goofy message; an extra […]

Monday Musing, Post-Event Edition

Up at my job, we have a phrase we throw about from time to time: “It feels like the day after a board meeting.” This phrase is usually uttered, you guessed it, the day after a board meeting. Said board meetings typically occur on Thursday evenings, and, while they only last a couple of hours, […]