One day, a longtime friend comes to you and says, “My friend, I am sick. I am dying. Quickly. Since I have no family, I wish to give to you personally my most treasured possession.” You are handed a golden elephant statuette of considerable size and weight. 

 “This elephan… Read full post »

I could spin some dull introspective yawn here about how I've been in a mode lately of either shedding excess baggage or deliberatly alienating myself from my family and others...

But no, right now I just need to get my new lawn mower to start and stay started like it did… Read full post »

This Easter, my daughter came home with a basket she paid little attention to, candy she didn’t want, and a doll she didn’t care about—a faux Precious Moments doll decked out for spring in soft lilac. Not too bad, except that this was no ordinary discount doll! It was a mutant… Read full post »

 I was married to a cop for four years and due to events of recent weeks have been meditating on the prospect of being called in as a character witness if he found himself in court because he shot and killed someone in the line of duty.

(Upon reading today's Far… Read full post »

Gloria and I had worked out diligently over the lunch hour. After a quick shower, I was dressing in the changing stall when I heard her ask, “Julia, is this your money on the floor or mine?” 

The question itself struck me as odd and confused me a little. Was Glo… Read full post »

 Rarely do I find in my own pictures that little something that makes my soul hurt because it's so wonderful.

yes, it's blurry and perhaps that's poetic in a tragic sense, but I can see the girl, the teenager, the young lady, my three year old is yet to become.

 … Read full post »

Pulling into the convention center parking lot, a sizable crowd had already gathered for the first (maybe only?) ThugWalk. Officially, it’s the Trayvon Martin March; in practice, it’s the Million Hoodie March combined with SlutWalk. The city tried to shut it down at least twice for trivia… Read full post »

Taking this picture required six different attempts to get the “look” and pose I liked. Would I, as many others have done, portray a stone-faced “thug,” thus illustrating the absurdity of equating a garment to a threat? Would an intense glare portray… Read full post »

I’ve acquired a few workout buddies during my lunchtime sweat-sessions. I’ve introduced one to the diet pill I had been using to assist in my own dramatic weight loss; another was a previous workout buddy who had transferred to another job location and recently transferred back, having ga… Read full post »

When I was twelve I returned from a Revivalist Summer with my grandmother, who was the piano lady for her brother’s Baptist church, nestled in the kudzu on top of Sand Mountain in the northeast corner of Alabama. After two months of churchgoings every Wednesday, twice on Sundays, and every day,… Read full post »

I attempted an article discussing the implications of what I've illustrated below. By the time I got to page 4, I realized I'd have a textbook before I was done.

I'll try to take it one piece at a time.

Corporeal Staircase: Hedonistic satisfaction only.

Physical Attractio… Read full post »

1. Your main trait: Dangerously Analytical   

2. The quality you like best in a man: a fascination in who I am  

3. The quality you like best in a woman: an appreciation in who you are 

4. Your main flaw: I forget that others are not as analytical (or appreciative in… Read full post »

Recently, my three year old discovered the countdown clock on the microwave. The lover of numbers that she is, she insists that I pick her up so she might watch the tick-tick-ticking of the digits as I heat up some food. To help her make some sense of what she is… Read full post »

Mary of Nazareth was found to be pregnant before she was wed. She was set to die, a sentence determined by the men in charge of her life. Men who would have carried out this charge in the name of honor—in other words: “Traditional Family Values.” 

(Traditional Family Values hav… Read full post »

Until recent years, social-political discontent could be gratified via our artistic expressions—movies in particular, which have the greatest audience for a generous dose of violent imagery. In 1996, Independence Day opened to the scene of intergalactic destruction of the White House—to r… Read full post »

The weather was calm and cool Sunday morning as I began my hour and a half drive to The Strand. I was imagining overcast or mostly cloudy skies and a sea breeze wind to cool my 13.1 mile run up and down the seawall. However--the weather of the last few days threatened… Read full post »

DISCLAIMER: I am neither doctor nor medical scientist. I do not have a stack of research from which to cite that I may quantify my observations. I can only tell you my story. 

In high school I developed Tourette’s Syndrome--or something like it. I was months into my unnamed afflicti… Read full post »

 The workshop table turned over with a crash. Seething, his robes torn, his rage continued to surge. The cabinet he had been hired to build, almost finished, had flown into the opposing wall.

His beloved, his bride as arranged in the traditions of his people, was taken by a rogue… Read full post »

It was my birthday and I was slow to get out of bed as the grey morning light filtered through the gauzy curtains, but I had a promise to keep.

Alone in the house, I was in no hurry to get my running clothes together, but neither was I lethargic… Read full post »

Popping hoodia-caffeine pills and letting them convince me that I don’t need to eat today was the easy part. Some days they worked. Some days they didn’t. Some days they worked very well and I would be staring at a fully stocked pantry without a single connection made between what my/… Read full post »

I believe the same open-mindedness that allows me to entertain the possibility of finding myself interested in a woman is the one telling me there is nothing wrong with chatting up a male co-worker who happens to be twice my age.

My mother would disapprove. My college friends would tell… Read full post »

To Corporate Media and the 1%, either by tax bracket or by blind allegiance:

Not that any of you may care, but I’ve been fighting an eye twitch most of today. I’m self-diagnosing it as psychosomatic effect of repressed insight which has been marinating in my brain the last month… Read full post »

At the advice of a therapist and the encouragement of a friend, I looked into the local Unitarian Universalist Church, presumably a place where diversity in faith is celebrated and perhaps a place where I can find a community in my otherwise isolated world. I never realized such a place existed.… Read full post »