Category Archives: Just Thinking

A text message exchange with a friend yesterday, which I used to express appreciation for a favor he agreed to perform for me, brought back memories that have remained with me, just under the surface, for years.  My father used to express … Continue reading →

Just over an hour ago, Anne Lamott posted the following to her Facebook page: Writing: shitty first drafts. Butt in chair. Just do it. You own everything that happened to you. You are going to feel like hell if you … Continue reading →

I spent the better part of a recent afternoon doing one of the many things I should have done months ago; cleaning and organizing the garage. The most onerous component of the project was moving big, unwieldy pieces of metal deck furniture … Continue reading →

I don’t just lean left, I do cartwheels left. I am an unabashedly left-leaning dude in a deep red state, an uncomfortable position that could put me in danger in the wrong circumstances.  Yeah, that’s scary to acknowledge.  It should … Continue reading →

We pretend to admire colors, yet we paint the world in black and white. We open ourselves to new ideas, provided those notions don’t cross the threshold between right and wrong—or good and bad or true and false—in our brilliantly … Continue reading →

Some days I want to be around real people, people who love who they are and have no urge to become someone else, someone others say they should be. They are the people who move from apartments in high-rise buildings near … Continue reading →

If only we teach the hungry to grow their own food, they will solve world hunger. If only we educate farmers about the effects of pesticides, they will clean our planet. If only we inform timber company executives about global warming, they … Continue reading →

No matter what, you cannot earn forgiveness for the unforgivable. Some offenses are too hurtful, too brutal, too coarsely painful to warrant a shred of understanding, even a hint of defense. Knowing there’s no forgiveness, no way to ever earn it, no … Continue reading →

Some days you don’t want to go home.  You want to leave.  You want to drive and drive and drive until the promise of sleep in a bed in a motel in a godforsaken little town in the middle of … Continue reading →

Here’s what I think about concealed carry laws: if the Second Amendment protects my right to carry a pistol wherever I go, why can’t I also carry a nuclear weapon in the same places? Where do we draw the line … Continue reading →

I want a lightweight, but heavy-duty, snow shovel.  I do not want to use it, but I want it close by in case I need it.  Yesterday, if I had that shovel in my garage, I would have used it. … Continue reading →

Last night, I made Moshhorda (the Uzbek soup I posted about a couple of weeks ago).  It was excellent, in spite of the fact that we had only half the  amount of mung beans called for in the recipe (which … Continue reading →

Have you ever felt a little woozy, like your head and face and arms are melting?  Oh, you thought I meant “felt a little woozy” as in put my hands on a woozy, didn’t you?  It would be unseemly for … Continue reading →

I’m journaling a bit this morning.  Nothing much here but random thoughts spilling from my brain, though my fingers, onto the keyboard and, miraculously, onto the screens of millions and millions of people worldwide (well, the potential is there). Yesterday … Continue reading →

It’s twenty minutes after five o’clock and I’m tired of being awake. I woke up just before four and have been writing and thinking uncomfortably ever since.  I have posted my two requisite blog posts but still don’t feel like I’ve accomplished a bloody … Continue reading →

Every once in a while I have this fantasy in which I simply disappear.  Not literally, but close to it.  One day I’m here, the next day there’s no trace of me; I’m just gone.  I don’t know just why … Continue reading →

I met a woman last week who suggested I need to face, and overcome, my fear.  She knows virtually nothing about me, except that I write and that I do not call myself a writer. When she was told by … Continue reading →

In spite of my efforts yesterday to find my phone, in my car where I thought I must have dropped it, I couldn’t find it.  But, this morning, I decided to have one last look.  Armed with a flashlight, I … Continue reading →