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Listening for Squirrels

Life is such a good mistake. Everyday casuals in word and image.

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Spring Sequence 1

impermanence lake mindfulness pause peace photo series photography practice relax seeing sequence spring things we see in spring time water waves

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Omnibus chitchat

aging birthdays bus city happiness happy humanity humans joy minneapolis minnesota nano essay nano non-fiction over 50 public transportation short essay short nonfiction talk true story urban

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First day of spring (redux)

Bde Maka Ska city everyday life flaneur flaneuse happiness joy lakes minneapolis observations short essay short nonfiction short story spring urban

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Little Diner on the Prairie S1, Ep1

dialogue diner conversation farmer life on the prairie Little House on the Prairie memoir men personal essay phones prairie prose short nonfiction vignettes women women writers

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Five-O! rhymes with Glow!

birthdays homeless homelessness mental health minneapolis minnesota schizophrenia turning 50

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A sing-a-long for when 15 feels like minus 4

January 18, 2019

cold dogs everyday life everyday objects pajamas short nonfiction sing-a-long walking dogs winter

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Candidate

November 28, 2018

dream sleep dreaming dreams election 2020 future president Joe Biden waking during dream

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Freeze

November 28, 2018

death squirrel winter

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Definition of dick-head (n.): jerk*

August 11, 2017

anger don't be a dick-head kindness

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Crush

December 12, 2016

childhood childhood crush girlhood nano non-fiction short essay short non-fiction

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My dad died while watching Monday Night Football

November 15, 2016

ABC Sports Cyclones football Iowa Joe Montana leukemia Monday Night Football NFL short essay short non-fiction

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One Wheel

October 28, 2016

children life minneapolis minnesota personal essay regret saying sorry short essay short non-fiction short nonfiction short prose unicycle

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Lake talk remnant

conversation eavesdropping gender roles household chores marriage men and women talking relationship

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Baby Girl Hodge, Minneapolis MN

Popular Posts

[new-moan-yuh]

One human and two dogs. Human has a sickness that goes like this: cough cough cough COUGH COUGH cough COUGH COUGH COUGH cough cough spit. Dogs have a condition that goes like this: snort snort snort fart SNORT SNORT BURP snort snore snore snore snort. Repeat with variation. cough cough COUGH COUGH COUGH spit cough cough. One dog looks at human, closes eyes. COUGH COUGH cough, throw back blankets, go to bathroom, COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH SPIT. Human returns to bed and positions body under bedclothes. Other dog gazes at human, lowers head, closes eyes. snore snore SNORE SNORT SNORE snore snore fart. Both dogs inhale and exhale. Eight canine legs stretch in opposite directions. Human coughs dozes coughs, watches sleeping canines. Dogs snore fart snore, dream of catching rabbits.

My dad died while watching Monday Night Football

Code blue. Crash cart. And football. On the TV in his hospital room, a football game played before the code and the cart arrived. It played after doctors and nurses injected, pumped and electrified his body. It played when I stood over him in grief in 1 986 on November 17. The game was Washington versus San Francisco. The 49er Joe Montana, online history says, tried throwing 60 passes against the Redskins. Probably my dad didn't care about Joe’s reach. My dad enjoyed watching football. As far as team support, he was a generalist: generally, he preferred the underdog. A Cyclones fan by birth on the western half of Iowan soil, college ball ruled over the NFL. But Monday night was Monday Night. Often, we watched together, father and daughter. Me resting against his side, feeling his lungs breathing, his heart beating. On that final night, the game played while he waited for his family, for me, to visit. The game played while he waited for the next day when he was...

Saccharine

C 2 H 6 0 2. Ethylene glycol. A sugar related to C 2 H 4 0 2 , the smallest known molecular sweetie called glycolaldehyde, a life-building essential found in a gas cloud in the Milky Way. No wonder my head hurts from anti-freeze (glycol) leaking into the passenger cabin of my beater car: the dust in my mind expands as a drive. This time to Austin, Minnesota, near the Iowa border. Ninety minutes into the journey (fifteen miles from destination) I realize I don't want what waits for me there. I stop in a place named for blossoming open fields and call the owner. I tell him my decision, eat my lunch (in the sugar cabin), and make a u-turn. Sweet-plugged ears or not, I hear scraping on the pavement. Park again and walk around. The muffler hangs off the rear. I cruise to a business selling repaired salvaged autos across from a grain elevator. "Can you fix this," I ask. Late Friday afternoon, the mechanic left early, still a body man remains. I follow him around back where he r...

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