The Persistence of Memory
I smiled, I laughed, I felt a melting behind my eyes watching her smile back at me. Each of us with ink sunk deep in our forearms reminding us of the love...
Unfinished Conversations
I entered the arena ready to be converted. Reliable sources had told me for years that Florence + the Machine was something special to see live: a religious...
Outtake: Unearned Luck
I’ve heard it said that luck may be a matter of perspective, that the lucky are folks who at best, are those that recognize an opportunity. Ty Frank (half of...
The Sacred and the Mundane
I held my nearly 12 year old kiddo crying against my chest when she came home from school today. I had gotten the email about an hour before from her school...
Regulation Radio
One minute, I was rinsing out a never-opened Trader Joe’s chai bottle in my sink (which had just paid too much money to replace the garbage disposal). The...
Demolition, Man
Under the watch of Saint Bread, we made our pact. For the uninitiated, Saint Bread is a small bakery and outdoor eating space on Portage Bay near the...
Supplemental: Landed
Maybe threshold moments are quieter than I expected. Maybe the buzz and vibration of needle against skin pushing ink for hours… Maybe the stinging wipe off...
Hold On
I woke up this morning, naked, sprawled and tangled in soft sheets, my lower left arm wrapped in plastic and bandages, morning light muted through pulldown...
Synthesis
The whole package. Jon and I started watching Lodge 49 when he was still sleeping in the parlor after his back surgery and first radiation treatments. We...
Fools
Our relationship was sudden, and accidental. I arrived October 29, 2004, by train with a few suitcases, to Seattle from Chicago. By October 31st, I kissed...
Bury Our Friends
The tree planting with Jon’s soil went very well. It was a good weekend overall. The kids, including my best friend’s kids, did most of the digging. There’s...
Supplemental: Vernal Equinox
When I was in my 20s, I had a very Chicago suburban roommate who invited me to join her family for their big Easter brunch. The kind of cultural family...
Choosing to Be Here
It had never occurred to me that I would want my tattoo artist to be a sadist. On this most recent Friday, I sat for my latest piece of body art, a bit of...
Be (anywhere but) Here Now
Fucking torture. I can’t be sunny about it. It’s lonely. How do you spend so much time and never get tired of someone? I know it’s lucky. I get that. I wish...
This is the noise that keeps me awake...
I spent probably three or four glorious years part of the Chicago goth scene when I was in my mid-20s. I found a home there, with the music and my friends,...
Empathy for the Dead Ones
CW: The usual grief and death, disordered eating, body shame stuff “Wow, I never met him, but I really respect the guy,” he said, on a stretch of highway...
The Drop
Wrapping the line with a larks head around the big toe, then around the second, around the foot, then the third toe, holding on, then a gasp, a yelp. Turning...
Soil
CW: Death, Cancer, Human Composting We drafted our wills in 2019 in the weeks before Jon went in for his back surgery to remove the tumor and vertebrae that...
The Year of Whatever
It was a moment of vulnerability that wasn't vulnerability. "Don't you have any guilty pleasures?" he asked, as I sat against the low leather passenger seat...
The Weight
CW: cancer, eating disorders, pregnancy loss, dysmorphia The radiation treatment was located near a mall, where a jeweler could take a link out of Jon's...
