Missing Gulfman, five years later
For the last three days, it has rained from the sunshine. We live in one of those places where half the people you meet aren’t natives. It’s not like Florida, a place northerners settle...
Category: Suburban warrior
The moms in my life
One woman kept me safe until I was old enough to keep myself safe. Another woman keeps me sane so I can be a good father. This is what moms do. They give all...
To the man buying my house
Dear Ben, In September of 2000, I was 26 years old and had been married only three months. Scoop, a 13-pound dog that bit people for sport, was 18 months old and could jump...
Earplugs
The first stop of the morning was for earplugs. We went to Home Depot together and walked among gods on a Saturday morning. They were immortal more-than-men who would destroy things and build new...
The man at the grocery store
My wife is paranoid. She’ll admit it as readily as I say it, but she’ll call it “observant” or “careful.” She’s suspicious of people I’d pick up as hitchhikers or trust to give me...
In search of a married man
Power-fetch at the soccer fields zapped Big Girl Dog of enough energy that she wouldn’t want to eat the walls again for several hours. We were on the half-mile walk trek home when the...
Listen
I worry about my oldest boy, but only because I see myself in him. He’s driven, but fights frustration. He’s joyful, but an easy mark for emotion. He also falls a lot. Genes are...
2010: The best and worst of Rapid Eye Reality
Looking back at 2010, I’m surprised I survived. In the span of 12 months, I found myself under a tsunami warning; I was lightly assaulted by Nelly and who I still suspect to be...
Hookers and johns of suburbia
It was a late-December South Carolina cold, the kind that looks warm from a Minnesota window but sneaks up on you when you leave the house with too much exposed skin. I was in...
The reasons I’m happy
I woke today more content than I’ve been in some time. As I said to my wife, I expect it to get better, but even if it doesn’t, I am as happy as I...
Four fathers
It’s a two-hour flight from Atlanta to Springfield, Missouri, one that leaves un-argued that Atlanta is a Cher-Madonna-Bono-city, while Springfield requires a state designation to determine whether it is Brad Pitt or a Brad...
Iceman cometh
My dad taught me many things: how to play in the key of G, how to shave, how to eat four pounds of crab legs without throwing up in public. I can’t assign a...
The life cycle of a vomiter
Stage 1: The body’s will–Notable during the first several years of a child’s life, Stage 1 is exhibited by body and mind exhibiting no will as it relates to vomiting. What wants to come...
November minutiae
Just one more month to go before I can discontinue this obligatory monthly update on the mundanities of my life. Here, because I have more to type than fingers to write it, is the...