Blog

I’m spending the day going through the ratpile that is my office. It stands in marked contrast to the orderly rest of the house. A psychologist would probably find this marked contrast interesting, but we won’t go there. In the many piles of papers and books are journals from the few years I kept one, … Continue reading I'll See You in Heaven

That your nose hairs freeze the second you walk outside. That you cough uncontrollably the second you walk outside. That your booted, double-socked toes are continually stubbed as you kick repeatedly at frozen dog turds while on poop patrol. That you have to hunch down to the level of the steering wheel in order to … Continue reading A few of the things that are difficult when you live in a place where it's -11 degrees at 9:25 a.m.

Do I love weekend breakfasts? Yes. Huge greasy weekend late morning/early afternoon breakfasts of eggs and pancakes and bacon and toast and coffee? Yes. Do I live in Minneapolis? Yes. Have I lived here for twenty years? Yes. Had I ever been to the Band Box Diner, at 729 S. Tenth St. in Minneapolis? Not … Continue reading The Band Box Diner in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Praise to the airport dog park. Praise to its winter marsh and blue snow and wide white slopes. Praise to its dark branches reaching skyward. Praise to the roaring birds of jets, ascending and alighting. Praise to the large woman with the high fretting voice, calling her dogs over and over, calling them that they, … Continue reading Praise to the Airport Dog Park

Why have a blog if you never write anything on it? Henceforth, my pre-New Year’s vow: more blogs. (Which sounds to me like more slogs through wintry swamps in leaden boots, but so be it.) GREAT READING: 1. Yo, Ivanhoe! Perhaps the most original writing on the web, always changing, always unique, always, somehow, heart-cracking.  … Continue reading What I'm Reading and What I'm You-Tubing

A child enters my room sometime after midnight. I know it’s my son by the silhouette of his cheek, his spiky, sleep-tossed hair. I say his name. He doesn’t answer. I call his name again and again, he does not answer. It is my boy, isn’t it? Or have I transformed a masked stranger into … Continue reading Sleepwalker, a poem

The newspaper reports that at twilight tonight Venus and Jupiter will conjoin in the southwestern sky, a fist and a half above the horizon. They won’t come together again for seventeen years. What the article does not say is that Mercury, the dark planet, will also be on hand. He’ll hover low, nearly invisible in … Continue reading Bargaining with the Planets

Once There Was Once there was a childhood full of space. Long stretches of stillness. A deep sense not of loneliness but alone-ness. This was in far upstate New York, in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. There were three little girls, sisters who dressed up for Easter, and for the first day of school, … Continue reading January 2007