May 21, 2012

There is the job. Bills. Raising kids. Keeping your wife happy. Home improvement projects. Yard work. Side gigs for extra money. And really, all you want to do is drink wine, sit with the words as they form shape, color, line. And be the best… Read full post »

cat's eye by Brooke Stevens - copyright 2012 

April 21, 2012

8:15 pm

These days. With the hands round and round. So fast. Clockwise. My head spins as I try—with all my might—to take it all in.

To my eyes. Ears.… Read full post »

monarchs by Brooke Stevens 

copyright 2012

www.mywifemakessigns.com

Saturday

7:47 am

Rain. A rush of drops against the house. Gray threatening to keep the sun away. But birds—dozens of them—singing anyway.

Light has come. An… Read full post »

an introduction

   Not long ago, I proposed this idea—CUTTING TEETH—to a literary agent in ANY CITY, U.S.A.

   “You need to develop a platform,” she said.

   Platform? I thought. I just want to write.

   “You need to/… Read full post »

It’s best not to think about it. To somehow dig deeper. Pray for rest. And hold fast to the reality that one day it stops. You’ve made vows. Created obligations. And fulfilling them has nothing to do with appreciation, recognition, or reward. Your thanks comes in knowing that your wife an… Read full post »

February 19^th, 2010

Words wake me. I need rest. Days of it. But the gut pushes, thoughts crank up, and there’s nothing that consoles me. Not my wife and the warmth of the bed. Not the sweetness of the kids quiet and dreaming upstairs. Not anything. So I… Read full post »

Not enough sleep. So the old hard chair, roaring furnace, and dog feet tacking the hardwood floor are more distraction than they should be. I wish I was tougher or that winter wasn’t so cold because I could be out. In it. Under hazy morning moonlight. Journaling in a chair beside… Read full post »

Raccoons up an old elm as we tour a 1940s custom-built brick home and dream of what it might be like to raise our kids there, in a neighborhood nicer than we deserve, and how me and my wife can sit by the fire and be content, and how maybe  I… Read full post »

January 14^th, 2010

9:08 am

Up and trying, but ideas are not flying. They are lead shot holding the line at the bottom. Tacking along the underbelly of the deep. Unable to rise because they are busy investigating things I cannot see. They will come. Eventually. And they will… Read full post »

January 9^th, 2010

7:46 am

Do not spend time feeling that other people don’t understand. And don’t think you’ll do it better in another place or on another day. There is only now. With the ideas rising to stretch. Coffee steaming. Cold fingers on the keys. Dog… Read full post »

S.B. works on chocolate chip cranberry pancakes and hash browns. Jovi bounces in her bouncy seat. Squeals and coos. Swings a chain of plastic teethers. Little Man sits in his pajamas. On the middle of the couch. In love with Wolverine. I get to the keys before the keys get to… Read full post »

Snowy and gray. Geese on the frozen pond. A skinny black squirrel forages for food. And here we are. Struggling to keep warm under a homemade blanket of winter gloom.

Need to sell a kidney. A story. My book. My fingers. My guts. My soul. Something. Just… Read full post »

December 23^rd, 2009

8:11 am

Bone cold outside. Toasty inside. Got my snowflake mug brimming with coffee. Feeling nostalgic. After all, it was a great friend that sent me the mug, about this time of year. Six years ago. Via the United States Postal Service. And with… Read full post »

December 19^th, 2009

Not Mr. Woods, the Senate, or Avatar. Maybe the snow. But not so much because we only got an inch—just enough to send a few bumper-to-bumper, race-to-the-red-light metal jockeys into curbs, ditches, each other. No, it is not current events or climate change or the… Read full post »

Lazy flakes dust dead leaves. White sun falls over the tops of naked gray trees and the light goes out. And we are brought to this—another Michigan December, another year older, another day different than I ever believed it would be—but life is good.

We have food.… Read full post »

             Another argument with my wife. And I’m speeding down M-32. Toward Gilchrist Creek in Avery. Questioning my life. My marriage. The man I’ve become. And out of nowhere comes the opossum.

        &nbs… Read full post »

Dead Bunnies

      It is seven o'clock. Saturday morning.

      Elizabeth is beside the bed. Shaking me.

      “Daddy, there’s another one!”

      I open… Read full post »

Rainy and 37 degrees. The grayest of December days. And I want to sell a kidney. A story. A part of me so we can make ends meet. Get a little ahead. And rest awhile. To have more time for the kids, my wife, these words. But organs are hard to… Read full post »

Sleep and dream and work and family is not enough, so each night there is a two drink minimum to level out and bring back thankfulness. We've a nice house. Happy healthy kids. A solid relationship that is likely to only be broken by death. And with the way… Read full post »

It used to be The Crying of Lot 49, Hemingway, pubs, and Pearl Jam. These were what fed my hunger and helped as I engaged in the act of putting words to paper. Now it is day in and day out. Diapers and formula. Mortgages and car payments. Groceries and utilities.… Read full post »

December 10, 2009

7:08 am

Temperature drops and I am not as warm as I’d hoped to be. It is a question of balance and hunger and need and want. It is never being settled no matter how much comfort and goodness and love I find. And… Read full post »