Having reached the august age of 61, I find myself at the doctor's office more often than I'd like. For some reason, these appointments cluster in the spring in a bizarre rite of seasonal self-preservation. In the past three months, I've gone for my annual physical, a head-to-toe skin exam with my dermatologist (skin cancer … Continue reading The Medical Rites of Spring
It turns out I have a dangerous temper. Dangerous to my identity as a civilized being, not to anyone else. I would have expected to reach this epiphany much earlier in life, but that’s the nature of epiphanies—they slowly form in the caverns of our subconscious and then, one day, when we’re slicing carrots or … Continue reading Fightin’ Words
The release of my book Midpoint this week resulted in some old friends reaching out to ask how I’m feeling eighteen months after undergoing surgery for stage-3 prostate cancer. The book ends with my checking results from my first postoperative PSA test in March, 2018. For people I don’t see often, that would be their … Continue reading Each Time, A Little More Composure
The year I played lacrosse at Manual High School in Denver, the team posed for its yearbook picture holding beakers and wearing safety goggles. I’m not sure whose idea that was, or what connection existed between chemistry and an ancient Native American sport. Recently, when I came across that image in my Thunderbolts yearbook, my … Continue reading My Glorious Lacrosse Career
Writing, for me, is like lucid dreaming. I can get so lost in my imaginary world that my realities become inverted: My desk and laptop drift into a kind of haze, while the world I'm writing about becomes vividly present. It's kind of cool, really, and when I'm in a groove like that, I hate … Continue reading What Those Chickadees Are Really Saying
When it comes to posting on my blog, I take my responsibility very seriously. I aim to post at least three times per week. I have a schedule that maps out five discrete but related content categories—or, as we call them in content marketing, pillars. I try to identify subjects that, while perhaps seen through … Continue reading The Delirious Art of Writing About Absolutely Nothing
I need to get my shit together. It’s not quite an existential concern, but it is a problem of identity, and that wigs me out. No doubt there are support groups for this sort of thing. They probably meet in church basements and sit in circles, talking at each other with wild eyes and trembling … Continue reading The Terrifying Truth About Social Media
Graduate school gave me mixed signals about intelligence. Every now and then I try to sort them out. Thirty-five years after I earned my master’s degree from the University of Virginia, the nature of my own intellect remains unclear to me. For a long time, I wondered just what kind of "intelligent" I might be—and … Continue reading An Unbearable Brightness of Being
Periodically, my friends ask me to tell one particularly embarrassing story—usually when the wine is flowing and they want a good laugh. I figure I’ll share it here: Doing so both exposes me as a bleeding-heart animal lover and states a very serious moral position. About 13 years ago, our 20-year-old rescue cat, Phoebe, … Continue reading The Most Expensive Cat Ever—And Why That’s Okay
I must have been about 14 when my father sent me to meet with our minister for some "counseling." By that point, I had already gone through a couple of phases in my spiritual development. When I was 10, I had a inexplicable surge of religious devotion; but when puberty gripped me, I moved away … Continue reading The Over-Examined Life
