Yearly Archive: 2010

Grown-ups can have hamsters

“A boxer!” the boy exclaimed. We were in the car. Tom T. Hall was singing about old dogs and my kid was pointing out the window at the brown boxer on the suburban lawn....

My microlending boy

Last week around this time, I was in the back of a Volkswagon and sliding out of a misty Rosario, Argentina. The city’s huge monuments and cloud-soaked buildings escaped through the back window as...

Our new girl

We spent nearly three months walking around a quiet house. We spent three months with no reason to make sure we didn’t leave a box of crackers unattended. We spent three months without seeing...

September minutiae

September is set to end, near as I can tell, in about 13 hours. It’s been a been a heckuva month. I barely understand why I keep doing these monthly updates, except that I...

Dogs at large

The dogs were determined, six in a haphazard row, straight from Disney, a mix of colors, sizes, and uncertain breeds. They looked as though they owned the streets but had a higher power to...

Seasonal exchange

It’s somewhere near 90 degrees outside. A June haze hangs over the mountains, a reminder that a great part of the American south is still part of the American south. I’m in Greenville, South...

Sunrise

I’ve seen a lot of sunrises in the past three months. Some have been shame’s flashlight, burnt orange, Vegas disasters that made me curse myself and everything around. A few have been black, through-the-curtains...

Remember today…

…the thousands of people who died on 9-11-01 and every one of their family and friends who carry a burden most of us cannot understand… …the fear, one so powerful it rolled in waves...

Burn this, sinners

If you are a good person–as most people believe themselves to be–there are things you don’t do. This goes beyond the Ten Commandments and the relatively commonsense approach to going through your days honoring...

Milestone

Along the way to becoming a man, along the way to that first kiss, first car, first beer, first love (none of these in any particular order, I’m sure), and all the rest of...

August minutiae

As part of my on-going series of “Stuff About Which You Don’t Care,” here’s the monthly report on the little things that kept me busy. Please return in September for…well, whatever happens that is...