The Middle Ages
MY RECENT POSTS
- The Art of Paper: Making
Beauty in the Desert
August 04, 2010 10:22PM - Catalogs are Messing with my
Mind
July 30, 2010 01:55PM - Ruminations on a Salad
July 10, 2010 11:05AM - Life Rules: 3 Meditations on
Desire
June 27, 2010 07:57PM - A 67.2% Chance of Happiness
June 16, 2010 10:28PM
MY RECENT COMMENTS
- “Well written and
achingly true. Thank
you.”
May 16, 2011 11:19AM - “What a well written
post. Great style and voice.
An although
I hated Ambien
enoug…”
May 04, 2011 09:37PM - “Wonderful article! I
particularly like the
succinctness of
your advice,
i.e. &quo…”
April 29, 2011 12:53PM - “Absolutely
wonderful.”
April 07, 2011 02:27AM - “What a funny, elegant,
eloquent poem describing
something
important. Yes, tell
ev…”
February 12, 2011 10:17PM
Julie Quiring's Links
I have come to Ghost Ranch in the high desert of New Mexico for a week-long workshop given by Laurie Doctor, a bookmaker, calligrapher, artist and writer. It is May, and a relief to be out of the Pacific Northwest, where the natural world is orgiastic with growth. Its forward motion… Read full post »
Catalogs are Messing with my Mind
In the mailbox, there is a catalog featuring freakishly well-proportioned young women in merino, silk and cashmere. I decide to look through it as a way to unwind from work, and by the time I have scanned the last page I am ready to place my order for everything it has… Read full post »
Ruminations on a Salad
It looks like an oil painting: sunset-pink radishes, chunky tomatoes, carrots peeking out like old coins. Woven throughout are brushstrokes of green – a meadow, perhaps, or forest floor.
I chew like an aspiring Buddhist, giving the experience my full attention. Something bitter, something spic… Read full post »
Life Rules: 3 Meditations on Desire
You do not have to be
good.
You do not
have to walk on your knees
through
the desert for a hundred miles, repenting.
You only
have to let the small animal of your body love what it
loves. {...}
… Read full post »
A 67.2% Chance of Happiness
When the nurse came to start my blood transfusion, she handed me a piece of paper to sign. It had a lot of words on it, and I told her I couldn’t read them without my glasses.
“Oh, it’s like everything else you sign in here,” she said… Read full post »
The Incredible, Amazing Gift of Time

I’m spending my days in a reclining chair, that icon of masculine hibernation, recuperating from surgery. I eat and sleep here, kept company by fourteen perfectly framed Douglas Fir trees visible through the window.
I have dragged myself out of bed most mornings of my life, so it is iro… Read full post »
A Hip Replaced
We can fix that, they say, and it will be good. But first, we must bring on the cavalry. They will have needles and knives and powerful drugs that will make you sick, but then you will get better. You imagine broken bones, lungs full of dust and spitting grit out… Read full post »
An Uncertain Life
Maybe I was always indecisive, but I became self conscious about it when I was 18, trying to make a decision about a boy. I was always trying to make a decision about a boy.
I was working full time, running the printing press for the Vancouver Public Library. The details… Read full post »
The Seduction of Outrage
Really, the site is a nightmare: The headline on the home page in a font large enough to be read by the legally blind, its wording as hysterical as its architecture. The lack of aesthetics - too much information, too little white space, enough distraction to keep me on the couch in my… Read full post »
Why I Write
I write because describing a raindrop or a cloud helps me feel less anxious about the storm.
So Long, Femur, It's Been Good to Know You
The old woman's socks catch my eye as soon as she lowers herself into the chair. They are detergent-commercial white and covered with small, cheerful ladybugs. In a room whose decor can best be described as Upscale Institutional, such whimsy seems an act of rebellion. I smile with appreciation, but h… Read full post »
A Man Who Was Sometimes Good
This morning I looked out the window and saw an ambulance, the sheriff and two emergency vehicles. I didn't see them take him away, but I soon learned Don was dead.
I moved here 12 years ago. Although the neighborhood was a little more bedraggled than I was used to, I liked… Read full post »
My Terrible Memoir
I've been scared for a decade that I'll die without writing a book. My book. Any day now, I could be hit by a bus or diagnosed with a terminal illness. I imagine myself on my deathbed in an agony of regret for my lack of discipline, for my stupid terror of… Read full post »
Picking on Myself
Mrs. Carpenter took hold of the sleeve of my blue acrylic sweater and marched me to the front of the room. Too terrified to make a sound, I mimed “I’m sorry” in the general direction of the waste paper bin beside her desk. This would not do. Mrs. Carpenter was a… Read full post »
Please, Give Me a Sign
I was 15 when the boy I desperately wanted to call my boyfriend asked me to hold his penis while he peed. I’d been waiting all summer for him to give me a sign that he liked me, and while none of my romantic daydreams had… Read full post »

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