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The autumn warmth of December ended today along the Front Range of the Rockies, heralding deep winter with gusting winds pressing between layers of wool and fleece. I woke up cold and tired, longing for the long days of summer when 7:00 is not a dark dawn but a dancing stream of sunlight on the…
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I was ten years old. Tired, with a plate of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets on the plate in front of me in a bar after four days of camping in the woods. The TV showed a newscast, an aerial shot of a small boat on the water and a headline: “Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter, Dead at…
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Looking at the post history of my blog, it may come as no surprise that the major skill I’ve been developing these past couple months is just. Social media. Communication with the outside world. This isn’t something that comes naturally to me, most accounts I have are abandoned promptly after about a week of activity. …
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If I could, I’d take myself back through time and space and land somewhere around 1100 AD near modern day St. Clair county, Illinois where the ancient city of Cahokia bustled at the peak of it’s power with a population between 10,200 and 15,300. Today, all that remains of the largest metropolis of the Mississippian…
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It only takes a cursory glance at my blog to know that I have a special affinity for dogs. Their joint history with humans, the dichotomy of fear and love that can make a dog a protector or violent monster, the wolf just beneath the surface. They are both the family dog chasing a would-be…
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It should come as a surprise to no one that I love Godzilla, and though my knowledge of the franchise is slimmer than that of your average superfan I still ran to the theaters as soon as I realized that a new Japanese rendition of Godzilla was out. I was late to the punch —…
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‘Tis the season for New Years Resolutions we’ll break by January 5th, and a season for focus on More here in America. More festivities, more holidays, bigger Christmas trees, brighter lights, more Miriah Carrey over the Target stereo so I can never escape her. It’s insurance deductible reset season, too, which means my job is…
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At my sister’s wedding in September, I had a conversation with her grandmother-in-law about squirrels. She’s from Texas. She was baffled at the boldness and number of squirrels in my parents’ backyard, chirping from the fences, playing with the bluejays and sparrows at the neighbors’ birdfeeders. Later in the season, they devoured the pumpkins my…
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I’ve never edited a long piece of writing before. By long, I mean novel length. I can easily churn out a polished 20-page research paper, a 10-page short story, flash fiction, all these smaller pieces have less space in which to pack overarching themes and character information. Every word in my smaller pieces is mindfully…
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My suburban upbringing holds a special place for hamburgers and hotdogs cooked on the barbecue, my place of birth hails the many joys of carnitas and costillas, but I don’t eat as much meat as I used to. I could lie and say it’s because I have some ethical complaint against the meat industry (I…
from the pen of icarus blake 