July 1st, 2021 On my recent post about white fragility, someone commented “Your not white.” I think that is a terrific introduction to this essay about race itself. The commentator wasn’t wrong, necessarily: race is all made up. In Ta-Nehisi Coates’ brilliant Between The World and Me (if you haven’t read it, do; there isn’tContinue reading “The Words Are All Made Up and The Points Don’t Mean Anything”
Tag Archives: Compassion
The Bad Guy . . . Duh.
June 29th, 2021 Hi! I’m a white person, and this is a post about white fragility. If you’re a white person, I encourage you to come along. I’m not going to just throw things at you that you’ve heard before; no, as is my way, I’m going to share a deeply personal story about myselfContinue reading “The Bad Guy . . . Duh.”
Cats Giving Men Fish
June 23rd, 2021 If you want to make an adult suspicious, be nice to them. That sounds counterintuitive, but it’s not. Common wisdom tells us that as we get older, we are required to become less naive, more cautious, and to refrain from being blindly kind to people in order to prove to others thatContinue reading “Cats Giving Men Fish”
2%
June 21st, 2021 Sometimes it takes an animal’s perspective to help us understand our own lives; the way that humans tend to overcomplicate things often gets in the way of seeing them clearly. This has become very apparent as I finish up hundreds of pages of squirrel research. I have fun facts for days (IContinue reading “2%”
Everywhere You Look
July 20th, 2021 It’s been brought to my attention by multiple people over the last few weeks that I have been talking about Full House a lot, and watching it with curious regularity. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t begin questioning why I’ve been doing this. With the 90’s being the latest era toContinue reading “Everywhere You Look”
Change, or Die
June 16th, 2021 Working in a bar as long as I have, I’ve heard a lot of stories. Most of them about other human beings. Most of them some kind of drama or hardship or horror. Quite a few of them about people who didn’t make it. Some of the people just had bad luck,Continue reading “Change, or Die”
Dedication
June 14th, 2021 One of the major themes of my novella Flip is loss. When I published it back in 2013, I wanted to give others the opportunity to honor people they’d lost by including a special dedication page in the front of the book, allowing anyone, who wished to, a space to remember aContinue reading “Dedication”
Manufactured Bottled Lightning
June 10th, 2021 I mean this in the creepiest possible way but you don’t know what your brain is thinking most of the time. This post is about your subconscious mind and how it relates to inspiration, supposed intervention, and mental blocks, ebbs and flows. I forgot what I was going to say. I’ve doneContinue reading “Manufactured Bottled Lightning”
Moving Days
June 7th, 2021 Moving on can be different things. I regularly play a game in my head where I try to imagine what my life would be like if my old job never ceased to exist. Lately, when I play that game, I get genuinely sad when I think of all the people I wouldn’tContinue reading “Moving Days”
Alarm For The Cause Of Being Brave
June 4th, 2021 I’m almost done writing a book (I may have mentioned it earlier) and it has taken me to some of the darkest places writing has ever taken me (I also mentioned that in passing). One of its lessons is about the power of being honest with yourself (and the power dishonesty canContinue reading “Alarm For The Cause Of Being Brave”
The Den 