topeka: on my grandmother (part II)

One month after I finished writing the first part of this piece I called my grandfather and wished him a happy Easter. My grandfather was born on Easter Sunday and so I always think of him even if Easter doesn’t happen to fall on his birthday and this year it fell eight days short of his birthday. I asked him how my grandmother was and he told me that she had deteriorated severely and I already knew that because my parents had told me the same thing the night before. I had no words to say to him and so I asked him to tell my grandmother that I loved her and he responded that he would.

san diego: on my grandmother (part I)

It hailed on the evening of Friday, February Eighth and I remember it well because hail is uncommon in San Diego and because my parents were visiting me from Kansas and because the next morning would be the first time I would hear that my grandfather had decided that after sixty three years of marriage he would no longer be sleeping with my grandmother. 

Christmas Poem

I authored this poem for my brother-in-law after prolonged, earnest meditation over a Thomas Kinkade painting. It composed the majority of his Christmas present and he immediately acknowledged it as the visionary masterpiece that it unquestionably is.

meh.ry christmas

Season’s greetings, Friends, Family, Loved Ones, and Others (you know who you are...)

I found the writing of this Christmas card to be egotistic to the highest degree and, as such, I delighted in the idea. However, I still desire to mitigate the adverse reaction you may have towards reading a recital of the adventures of my twenty-four-year-old self in Two Thousand and Twelve. I have, accordingly, elected to provide for you an account of my past calendar year that is as close to entirely false as possible in the hopes that it shall be a more authentic reflection of my life than a careful selection of only the most self aggrandizing true events. I feel that I must reiterate, I will attempt to be as dishonest as possible hoping that the humor provided will be a more accurate representation of my personality than any catalogue of events could ever be. With that established, let us commence this whimsical chicanery posthaste!

tucson: on hanes, hot tubs, and the desert darkness

It wasn’t until I began scaling a stone wall behind a stranger’s hotel room in the desert darkness of the Arizona night that I became confident that the Tucson Conference’s hot tub party was, at best, a myth and, more likely, some elderly academic’s idea of a hilarious snipe hunt. My severely under-dressed body was frozen stiff and my feet had been worn raw and I made myself swear that any future backcountry swimsuit trekking would involve a less hilarious swimsuit that protected enough of my delicate and precious inner thighs to defend against an assault from the Arizona desert scrub and chaparral. Nonetheless, Mike and I gritted our teeth and clutched our beers tighter and pressed onward while all hope seemed lost and our bubbling beacon of chlorinated comfort shone dimmest.

puerto rico: on quesadillas, conquest, and culture

If you find yourself in Old San Juan and you follow the right cobblestone street, down the proper narrow alleyways, past the correct two-story, Spanish-style, a-touch-too-bright-but-not-quite-gaudy orange apartment building you will see a park. It is unassuming in the purest sense. Literally, it assumes nothing. It can’t because assumptions are a luxury only afforded to sentient beings and this park is simply a diminutive but well apportioned arrangement of trees and benches with a gazebo and some ivy thrown in for good measure.

miami: on airboats, facial hair, and assorted miamigans

There was a man and there was a airboat and there was one can of Budweiser and there were two cigarettes and there was a cadre of alligators and there were twelve inches of dead, fraying, sun-bleached hair formed into an absurd ponytail and secured in place by no fewer than a half dozen rubber bands. The man was on the airboat and one cigarette was in his mouth and the other was waiting in his left hand and the can of Budweiser was in his right hand and the absurd ponytail was clinging desperately to his head and the cadre of alligators was lurking in the water next to the boat and there could be no doubt that I was in the Florida Everglades.