Author Archives: John Swinburn

New tires. Check. New brake pads. Check. New headlights ordered. Check. Front-end alignment scheduled. Not yet, but soon. Won’t be long now before our thirteen-year-old’s reconstructive and cosmetic surgery makes her an almost attractive ride.

Kindness is such an easy habit to fall out of. My advice to myself, and anyone else who’s reading this, is to practice it every day so it becomes second nature.

I remember a time, years ago, in an old, worn coffee shop, when I saw a man sheepishly wipe caked sugar from his face.  Coffee had dribbled from his cup, catching his lower lip and chin before it spilled onto his shirt. He … Continue reading →

Dusk invades late in the day and light begins to drain from the sky. As nightfall approaches, the speed of its disappearance accelerates, as if daylight were running away as fast as it can from the approaching darkness.  Is darkness the absence … Continue reading →

Overcoming challenges or, at least, meeting them head-on offers a great sense of personal satisfaction.

It feels so damn good to learn new things, doesn’t it? I mean, if every day simply brought more of the same stuff you already knew, wouldn’t you want to swallow a Walmart-sized bottle of sleeping pills? Some days I … Continue reading →

Is there a ground pork shortage nationwide, or is it just in the vicinity of Hot Springs? I have been looking for ground pork for days.  How can I make pork congee without ground pork? I finally took desperate measures yesterday … Continue reading →

If I were forced to say what happiness smells like, I would speak of freshly ground coffee.

If you love me, you’ll kiss me from time to time. It’s as simple as that. And my role in this love-fest is identical to yours. So there you go. Your status, and mine, will be apparent in short order, … Continue reading →

Drifting through a sleepless night, I stopped in on an occasional haunting dream. Once, a rental car’s tires went flat, sending the car into a ditch and exposing collapsible rims and shredded tires. Later, or perhaps earlier, a woman flirted … Continue reading →

One distinctly negative effect of the internet is the fact that the definition of  “news media” is coming apart at the seams. Where does one find “news” versus opinions and active partisanship masquerading as news? In Hot Springs, AR, a “news” … Continue reading →

It’s humbling to be surrounded by talent. The presence of so much talent could overwhelm one’s efforts to develop it in oneself, but that would be a shame. Rather than feeling surrounded by impossible-to-scale walls of talent, it pays to see the hundreds … Continue reading →