I lost last week in a rush of crushing health-related anxiety and the euphoric relief when that anxiety was for nothing, then working all the time and then some more anxiety and if you’re keeping track we’re in the euphoric state of relief following crushing anxiety bout #2. Between the bouts I did my taxes. It only hurt a little. I’m pretty much a communist and the only day my tendencies lean toward the capitalistic is on the day I…
Today marks the 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death. Ten years ago I wrote about his death and a young man named Crazy Tony. Ten years ago I was more sentimental than I am now. Even though today marks the day of Cobain’s actual death, it’s April 8, 1994 that is forever etched in my memory. That’s the day we found out. That’s the cloudy, grey day in Eau Claire, WI when The Spectator phone rang off the hook, everyone…
(pictured above, business on the left) Helen and I found each other in the midst of the turbulent hairtimes that were the spring of 2012, shortly before my birthday. Jenny had abandoned me for some salon in the Hellmouth that is Eden Prairie, and the woman whose name I cannot remember turned my boring natural hair color into a hideous shade of Sun-In orange/blonde. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before but Helen is like a hair scientist. When…
It’s Spring Break here in Shakopee which means it’s Tibblesitting time for me. Our days start ridiculously early now that Sister #3 has a fancy (yet still depressing) job in downtown Minneapolis. So yeah, 6:45 a.m. and we’ve got Tibbles all up in this joint. Yawn. And today was April Fool’s Day, a concept they don’t quite grasp. This is how our day went. “Your face looks like a dirty butt,” one of them would say. “Hey,” I would interject….
I can’t remember the last time I read a book as sad and cynical as B.J. Novak’s collection of flash fiction One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories. I can’t tell if these stories are hipster detachment masquerading as intellectualism or what. The voice throughout the sixty-four stories is one note cool, cynical finding humor in other’s misfortune. Ugh. And I can’t tell if my problems with this book are specific to B.J.Novak’s writing or the genre of flash (or…
As I type this sentence it is 5:55 a.m. I’ve been awake for 55 minutes, out of bed for 25 of those. In an odd bit of coincidence or perhaps it was foreshadowing, Mr. Coffee was already starting his happy bubbling sounds when I stumbled down the stairs in the dark of this pre-dawn morning. I thought I set Mr. Coffee to start at 6:30 a.m. last night before I turned in at an unusually early hour. This would give…
