Bonus Essay

Cold, wet, and gray.

Hey all!

A couple of updates before the essay:

My self-publishing struggles continue apace. The good news is it is now for sale on Amazon as both a physical paperback

The last chapter of Food is Love.

Hey all!

The manuscript for Food is Love, my food based memoir, topped off right at 50,000 words, or a 200 page finished book, more or less. I've been…

Making Jelly (and a short update)

Hey y'all!

This is a rewrite of the muscadine piece from late August, with the addition of the formal recipe for jelly. This is the version going into the book.

I'm 53, and don't know what to do.

NB: Because most of my creative energy is being spent on revising this book I'm hoping to have out in time for the holidays, it's becoming harder and harder to…

Cat Essay part 2- The Kitten Room

NB: This is the first draft of the second part of a five-part essay I'm writing for a creative nonfiction class you guys paid for me to take. You can…

The cat essay - part 1

I'm taking another class (which you guys paid for - thank you!) on creative nonfiction writing, and an assignment is to write a longish essay in five sections. I'll be…

Waiting

They were retired farmers, but now lived in a small house on 3 acres we had sold them for $300. According to my grandmother, the best deal she ever made…

The Delta

Two pieces of housekeeping: Some folks have asked after the kittens - They are doing much better! Their eyesight is better, and it looks like they will all have sight…

Three blind kittens


They are basically helpless, being five weeks old, blind and weighing less than a pound each. They also have a respiratory infection, and thus can't smell where the food is…

Muscadines in August

I made muscadine jelly this week. It holds many memories for me, and so I thought I would tell you about it. This piece is long - it needs to…

The new photo

I had most of an essay done, and planned to finish it up this morning. But then I got distracted, and decided to just tell you about what I was…

Common Ground

Hey y'all!

A couple of quick notes:

I have a contract! Effective last Monday, I am now the the Interim Director for a regional nonprofit that works to end inequity…

There are no 12 steps for this.

I have lived with depression my entire life. 

When I was a kid, we didn’t call it depression. Instead, we said I was a moody child. That I was “in…

The tool chest of the proletariat.

When it comes to the sort of woodworking I like to do, there are broadly speaking, a couple of ways people store their tools. 

Some people hang their tools on…

The limits of my methodology

I have never been good at school. 

To be clear, I usually made good grades in school, but that was just my masking to meet their expectations. Many of us…

The jangle

It has been said that beggars cannot be choosers. As someone who worked among the unhoused community for nearly a decade and a half, I can assure you that whoever…

Community

Hey y'all - It's been a rough but generative spring so far. I have a lot going on, and I am running about like a man with my hair on…

Sam

Not all the stories about my time working among the unhoused are about death, I promise. But it was the deaths that did me in, and that ultimately made me…

Karen's World

Hi y'all!

On Tuesday of last week, my friend Karen died. The funeral was Friday, in Raleigh, NC, so I cancelled all the meetings for the end of the week…