Just staring at this empty beer bottle reminds him of his brother, the younger one. The beer makes it clearer; the face, how he yelled “freedom” when they surfed together and when he rode his girlfriend around on the back of his motorbike. She was crazy in love with him and just plain crazy in [...]

“I told you. I’m not a misanthrope, I’m just having a down day.” Imagining my side of a conversation I might or might not have with Patti. “That heifer calf died this morning, barely an hour old. As she wheezed her life away it sounded to me like, ‘Help me, help me.’ And I couldn’t, [...]

Waiting for a flight home in the Atlanta airport he checks his email on his Blackberry.
 From his boss: The Forsyth contract has to be signed one way or the other day after tomorrow. Will you be ready?
Reply: I’m all over it chief. Send.
Forgot to bring it with me to read on the plane, oh shit.
 From [...]

Journal writing is not a clean habit. It leaves all kinds of detritus behind; and whose job is it taking care of this crap? In tennis, every shot that is not a winner is a “nice try.” But that’s what tennis is, a bunch of nice tries until, WHAP! This stuff in the journals is [...]

He looked a decent sort, 25 something. Nothing to do except start, what ever happens next will be nothing at all unless there’s a start.
“Ahem, I see you’re staying at Pancho’s too”
“Yeah, I noticed you at the pool.”
“I need to ask you for a favor, OK?”
“Sure, shoot.”
“I’ve made some mistakes …”
“Jeez, who hasn’t.”
“Some worse than [...]

This past weekend JP, Ruby and I visited a goat farm forty miles from Redstone, over McClure Pass, in a town called Crawford, just past Paonia. This region is second only to California in producing organic goods, as the farm manageress informed us.
On this warm, early spring day we saw young goats, kids, one [...]

They met here when they needed to. At the end of the mall close to the pet shop that got little traffic. If somebody did come by they pretended to be walking away as if they hadn’t found what they wanted there for the parakeets.
The recently single dad has the bald spot and his two [...]