11.15.25

You’re going to go blind.

You’re going to choke on the ashes of reimbursed expenses.

You’re going to go blind.

Earth wasn’t created in a day and you wouldn’t know how to turn left out of a wet paper bag. The blood seems to be boiling this morning and for no reasonable explanation. Time has been sucked out of life in the same way that dollars disappear from wallets.

Another trip. Another overnight. Another departure. Another arrival.

Make plans. Unmake plans. Hang the jacket on the hook. Slip into something that will drown you. A red pen. A white sheet of paper. Eight studded tires and a bucket full of emptiness. Garbage bags folded just so. A Petri dish. A lab coat. An assumption. Close the rink door. Sweep the popcorn. Change the garbage cans.

You parked out back on the street out front. You put a show on the tile. You left the door open. You smoked the cigarette. You drank all the water. You mowed the backyard. You did.

Lost. Found. Rearranged. Make a deal with whomever to shore up the fear of loneliness. Forever is now. Now is tomorrow. Tomorrow is yesterday. Forget. Forgot. Fuck off.

11.09.25

Twelve days elapsed. No practice practiced.

Twelve days elapsed and a sickness has settled in.

A mirror in New Orleans. A van in the six ten. Wandering around out west. Searching fearlessly for something that was never to be understood. Reckless abandon. A timeline speckled with fear and insecurity.

Who am I? Where do I belong? Why do these words hold me down like an anchor?

Fresh baked cookies. Bags full of them.

Hand tattoos. Cigarettes on fifth.

There’s snow on the ground outside and it’s beautiful. Dog fights. Ballon rides. Merry go rounds. A staple, a paper clip and a plastic cup full of brown ale. Jam the discs into the bag and walk right out the front door. Make amends. Try and get your brain to line up and tell the story the way it happened and it all falls apart. Write things down as they roll through the mind and it all feels scattered and separated…but it all ends up on the page. Thousands of words. Tens of them. Hundreds of them. We’re not done. A giraffe and a chance meeting. Hold the line. Tell the lies. Drink all the drinks.

Travel. Travel. Travel.

Unraveled. Untethered. Unbroken.

Run a million miles and then again for the park. Signs in the front yard.

WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE ME!

Busted. Dusted. Done.

10.28.25

Writing again for practice. It’s incredible how quickly the process leaves when it’s unattended. The same applies to photographs.

To get to one-hundred words feels like an insurmountable task.

I do remember, not so long ago, when I engaged in a one-hundred word activity with a friend of mine. We held each other accountable every morning and we both completed the exercise for at least thirty days. It was nice to have somebody on the other end of the task. We didn't read each other’s work, we simply wrote and then checked in with the other person.

What’s real interesting about that exercise is that the work we do during the day has since separated us. We both applied for a role and one of us got it. The promotion meant that one of us moved upward into a space that oversees the other space. There aren’t any rules that govern who can interact with who, but there seems to be some unspoken borders that prevent it.

Maybe it’s a me thing? Maybe it’s not?

Regardless, that person and I don’t talk much anymore and I think that’s kinda sad. I suppose it’s a nice reminder to me, and to anybody that might stumble across this, that work is just work. It’s not a place to make friends and it certainly isn’t something to confuse as family. Work is the place where you get money to pay for things in the spaces of your life where you’re not working.

Everyone deserves the right to earn a living wage.

Everyone deserves the right to pursue their own happiness.

Everyone deserves the right to be loved, appreciated and valued.

10.27.25

Golden leaves against a powder blue sky. Coffee stains on the inside of a brand new mug. The whir of a fan inside a laptop on the couch. Red ball. Red tray. Red water bottle. The lights go off at 9:30, after all the emails leave. Cookies on the couch in a bag of remorse. Bags still packed. Clutter. Lawn yet to be mowed. This is practice. Again.

10.24.25 pt. 2

Unfortunate cancer diagnosis.

Twelve Sundays through the summer.

Pharmaceutical commercials for everything that ails you.

You’ll be dead before that donut shop. You’ll be asleep before the falls. Go outside and stop complaining.

Life. Death. Cigarettes.

Failure. Failure. Failure.

Drive the truck. Park the truck. Drive the truck. Repeat. Oil change. Tire rotation. Drive the truck. Repeat.

Lower back pain. Knee pain. Lost eyesight. Overweight.

Gym membership. Utility bills. WiFi passwords. Rake the lawn. Mow the lawn. Die.

10.24.25

There is frost on the windows of the cars in the street and the garbage truck is out for it’s early morning rounds. The dogs are curled up in their spots and the neighborhood is on the cusp of waking up. It’s Friday.

Go outside. Turn it off and go outside.

08.06.25 pt. 2

North Dakota by sundown and the skies open up. Sweatshirts and cowboy boots and another lifted truck. I’m out here wondering what it is that makes a great leader great. It keeps me up at night.

Work is work and it’ll be there until it ain’t. Publish the draft. Schedule the post. Make the things that get you out of bed. Your calling is to help people, to inspire them to see in themselves what they haven’t yet. You were put on this earth to lead people to the places where they discover confidence. You are a pollinator. You are a super spreader. The things you do move well beyond their initial reach and that’s where the magic is.

It doesn’t matter where you do the things you do, the results are always the same.

10.03.24

Take a good long look at the footwear of America. We are not what we wear or what we do for work, but in so many ways we are. Crippled by prosperity and aged into disparity. Wheelchairs and diabetes. Anonymous alcoholics lined up at the liquor store. An a front. An aside. Tackled into self-doubt by our own want to get ahead. Vote for me they yell from the stone-paved pathways that lead to their second homes. I’ll write you a book. I’ll mail you an inspirational video. I’ll start a charity to employ my great-niece. I’ll scream down from my glass tower while I throw rocks and spray painted racial epithets on the walls of our universities and institutional learning facilities. Arrogance. Ignorance. Attitude. Platitudes. Lie to me and tell me I’m pretty. Gratuity. Income. Analysis. Paralysis. Ride the bus to the edge of town and get off at the last stop. Your graduated now. Good luck going forward.

10.01.24

Early morning on the eastern end of things.

Heading east to go north.

Death awaits and the angles of the awards are unknown.

Pass eleven and stumble down to seventeen.

A bank, a bulldog and a vacation home.

A coffee cup, a dead end parking lot and a lost cause carpet on an otherwise tiled floor.

The newsman said there is a one million dollar reward for the recovery of the body, but failed to give any other description. Cash wise casino trailer and a red minivan retro-fitted to carry the immobile. Large vans and manufactured wealth. Striped sweaters, coffee cups and a backpack made for traveling. Sorry. Checkers. Board games. One crumpled napkin, two beverages and a clock that winds down to twenty-four. You’ll never find your way out of here because you cannot remember how you got in. You failed. You’ll fail again.

Broken fingers hold rings at swollen knuckles. Finger nails clip themselves into this sinking feeling, this sinking ship of feelings tethered to the dock of manicured lives. Longshoremen wander aimlessly into the fog whose horn only ever blows for obstructed views. Black wheels. Silver wheels. Yellow buses. You are lost. We are lost. Forever.

09.30.24

I walked right up to the edge of your cliff and looked over. I walked right up to the end of your life and looked in. I saw your plane coming down the runway from the line to get through security, but I fainted when I had to raise my hands. Inspected. Rejected. Lost. Found. Bound. No cell service and winds blowing in from the West. It’ll be eight minutes for you and the remainder for the rest. I’ve struggled with you all of my life were the words from the wheelchair in that tiny little bar in that tiny little neighborhood long forgotten and moved on from. A volunteer and the leather-bound sleeve. It’s time to go. It’s time to go. It’s time to go.

09.29.24

I remember the Oldsmobile and the Lincoln. There must have been so much pride in acquiring them both, as they were certainly symbols of success. It’s unfortunate that time didn’t perpetuate that feeling and that success in modern times is no longer hinged to the possession of particular items. Rather, these days, success seems to attach itself to whether or not one can come to terms and make peace with the fact that most will always and forever be behind in their debt.

A paint marker and a concrete wall.

A walk by the river and a fistful of memories.

I can relate. Right here in the middle of my life.

Forty-six. Old and in the way.

Observe. Take notes.

Good begets good.

Bad begets bad.

09.28.24

It’ll be dark before it becomes obvious.

It’ll be light before it becomes a mystery.

Envious. Wonderous. Lost. Found.

You cannot see what you do not know.

08.02.24

A ride in the van that ends in sushi. A walk through the building that ends in the kitchen. You’ll do as you’re told. Pink over black. Sometimes. Sometimes never. Swallow a giraffe and get into the ring. There is no sign from heaven and the hardwood floors know it. A grocery store and a stick of gum. A trip out east with trains and planes and cars. Somehow, at forty-six, I feel lost and I suppose it’s normal, but without ever having been here before, it’s difficult to say. Onward. Forward. You never listened anyway, said the record to the record player. Tincture. Puncture. Structure. Relent. A dozen cars and more bikes and homemade waffles nearly every morning. Do as you’re told.

08.02.24

I smoked cigarettes on your bridge and carried burritos through your tunnel. The folks under your tent waved hello, but the wind in my face kept me from returning the favor. I wasn’t going to anyway. Not today. Not yesterday. Not a reflection on their effort, nor is it a reflection on my consideration. I just don’t feel like it.

Oil change. Mileage. Drive another hour into the future. Wander. Wonder. Wind it down. Twelve, seven, six, fourteen. I can’t see you and I don’t really want to.

10.18.23

I was going to write a book, but I couldn’t fit my pencil through the door.

I was going to give a shit, but I couldn’t fit it in my book.

No pencil. No book.

Insecurity. Fear. An umbrella of ego.

10.16.23

Process the feelings connected to your ego and exercise the muscles that can let them go. It’ll be your death if you keep walking down this road that leads to self-loathing. What is it about your discontent that keeps to tethered to your past?

— stop —

The lightning strike that killed my uncle was a bottle of gin and a carton of cigarettes. It may well have been the metal slide at the park with the sun beating down on it. Either way it burned the skin so bad that it demanded the helicopter ride that ended in watered down coffee and hospital food.

— stop —

You are a lost soul. You are a purposeless child. You’ll find your way to the back of the church and it’ll be your feet that end up getting washed. Break the bread. Take the money from the basket. Slip into to the confessional just off to the side and hope for the best. Bless us, oh lord. Bless us until our hands bleed and the leather seats in our new truck warm our backs in the cold morning air. This is where we meet our maker. This is where we find our purpose. This is where we come home.

10.15.23

There was a time when you were getting dressed, before the time you left as the sun was coming up, that I remember you saying something about missing the train. I don’t recall the events that led up to your statement, but I do recall you noting some very specific details about the train. Now, so we’re all clear on this, you had never expressed any kind of interest in trains prior to this and, as is noted in the history books, the trains had never been mentioned during any of our conversations, either positively or negatively. The whole thing left me baffled.

— stop —

A bookstore. A coffee shop. A ten dollar tip.

A bike ride. A cityscape. A forty dollar bag of groceries.

To whom do I owe this debt and to whom shall I pay my respects? An orange. An Apple. A piece of banana bread. These are the things that pile themselves up in my mind as I make my way from adult to child and back again.

— stop —

Forgive me, for I’ve lost my way. I got sidetracked in the scroll and I lost myself wondering about why it was that I had walked away. I saw the posts about the rocks and all the smiley folks circling their way from the start to the end. I read the reports about the happy family that has done so much and how everyone is living their best moment. I saw it and I lived it and so often I find myself walking right back into it.

It’ll catch you if you’re not careful. It’ll eat your brain and leave you for dead.

Meditate. Stop and breathe. Stop and focus. Repeat after me…

I’m sorry

Please forgive me

Thank you

I love you