If my grandfather was still alive, he would wear black shoes like that, and an old black belt like that one, and probably even sport those grayish, navy-blue trousers.
“Hey,” I shout to the man. “You need a drink?”
Continue reading ““Them Preachers Don’t Know Nothin’””
If someone guaranteed that my grandfather’s ghost had decided to hang around this smug little planet, but they wouldn’t tell me where, the Frederick Fair is the first place I would look. Everything I see around here reminds me of him: the tables he built that we still use; his sloppy handwriting on the outside of various bins; the old guy who totes away the trash (who is probably the age my grandfather would be, if he were still alive). Continue reading “Frederick Fair, Day Two: My Grandfather’s Ghost”
We pull up beside the old trailer. Its silver outside flakes off, like that rock with the oily skin. Rust seeps down from the top corners like old blood, and even from the ground I can see the tin strips from where my cousin patched the roof years ago.
And the tire is flat. The tire is always flat. Each and every year we show up at the storage facility where we park our trailer, and the tire reminds me of the Shel Silverstein book, “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O.” Continue reading “Frederick Fair, Day One: The Flat Tire”
About 18 months ago, I started blogging. There were two main reasons for this: Continue reading “The Two Main Reasons I Started Blogging”
Nearly every morning these days I wake up to the sound of little feet. I can hear them coming through the living room, scratching on the carpet, practically prancing with energy and excitement at a new day.
It’s our little Abra, and she comes into our bedroom, climbs up up up into our tall bed and plops down between the sleeping form of her mother and the barely awake lump that is her father.
“Good morning, Doodle,” I say. Continue reading “My Human Alarm Clock”
Finishing things: traditionally, this is not one of my strengths. Before I had the opportunity to write for a living, I had the luxury of starting and re-starting and erasing and starting something new.
What I realize now is that my avoidance of completing stories reflected a deeply-rooted fear: what if I finally finish something and it’s not any good? When someone hears that I’m a writer, and they ask, “What do you write?”, it’s so much easier to say, “I’m working on a book,” than it is to say, “Here – this is what I’ve written. For now, under the circumstances, this is the best that I could do.” Continue reading “One of My Biggest Weaknesses”
