It was winter in Maine and dark early. Clear still in my memory, all the landmarks of the house I grew up in: vast rows of tall windows, the sheen on cedar planks gleaming under track lighting, a plethora of houseplants hugging the corners, all the green and gold making for… Read full post »

More reminscence from the wilds of the north:

“There’s this party up at Hermit Island, wanna go with me?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s this place that I used to be a camp counselor, a little island near Bath. It’s really cool. We all get… Read full post »

The contrast between the environment at the shelter and the lifestyle of Meredith’s family was so stark I may as well have moved to the Taj Mahal. I continue to feel ceaseless gratitude to her mom for providing me with a respite from my life, a respite in every sense of… Read full post »

The sun rises. I can still smell the sea on the calm cool air that morning. The flood of sunlight approaching is unstoppable and I have to make a decision. Time breaks our hearts as surely as trees break stone with their roots. I choose to pack what I can without… Read full post »

Ever since I posted Blocking the Door, I’ve gotten questions about how I got out. It’s a long story, so I will be posting it here in multiple parts.

In the summer of 1991 I was removed from the custody of my father and placed into foster care. The… Read full post »

The door was always blocked. I vacuumed in straight lines, twice a day, and if I messed up, I vacuumed the whole carpet over again. It was the same tic from earlier in my childhood, that creeping perfectionism, each essay copied over and over for spelling mistakes; never crossed out, just… Read full post »

A recent post by Rahul Parikh (From the Medical-Legal Department) reminded me of some issues involving the separation of church and state raised by something that happened at my daughter’s school when she was in kindergarten (She enters 1^st grade in 5 days, 17 hours and 9 minutes).

Now, I… Read full post »

A few years ago, I took a contract job in New Hampshire. I needed an inexpensive place to stay as I would be splitting my time between Texas and the Northeast. A friend of mine offered to rent me a spare room in his house near Portland, Maine; and although I… Read full post »

After reading a post that included a fun quote by Stephen King (Spoiler Alert by The Biblio Files), I realized that I have never gotten around to telling my Stephen King story.

Before you think that this is a mindless bit of star fucking, I would like to note that… Read full post »

Spoiler alert: Wait, can you spoil non-fiction? No? Good.

Today I went to see the Austin premiere of the film The Longshots, a movie about Jasmine Plummer, the first female to play in a Pop Warner football tournament in the league’s history.

The reason that I was there is… Read full post »

In the course of my work, I listen to the quarterly earnings calls that public companies hold for analysts and shareholders. Much of what I hear disgusts me, from the startling lack of sensitivity toward the nation’s working poor shown by a big oil company senior executive quite literally laugh… Read full post »