Fiction, Writing, Articles, Essays, Reviews.
Someone close to me is feeling in a bad way. They’re suffering from a dark brew of disappointment, sadness, and anxiety. I know because they told me. We sat at a table over a cup of coffee and the coffee went down my throat like battery acid when I looked into their eyes and saw the pain radiating out. It was hard to sit there and hear what they were going through. Of course I was uncomfortable...
On a Sunday morning, early, solitude, coffee, others still asleep above you, thinking about the day ahead and you’ve got things to do but nothing absolutely demanding your attention, you turn and look out the window and get this, pay attention to this. I look back down the arc and get snared in how I chose to spend my time, where I put my energy, to what did I devote my minutes, hours, days...
When he emerged from the den, Robert found her stretched on a lounge chair by the pool. She wore a black bikini and was listening to music through her earphones. Her toenails were freshly manicured and painted a glossy maroon. He dragged over a chair. Erin sat up and took off the earphones. “So you like Skidmore so far?” “I’m in a band.” “Playing keyboards?” “I’m the singer. We’re trying to get a...
Do you know what the Texas state motto is? Friendship. One simple word that says so much. It says empathy and nurturing. It says welcome and goodwill. Many of us non-Texans are confused. We would understand if your state motto was “We Control Women’s Bodies” or “We Love Voter Suppression” or even “Guns for Everyone!” Those mottos would make sense given the recent passage of extreme abortion...
Sweat patterns darkened his white shirt along the neckline. Dust stuck to his summer wool suit. A rainmaker who wears a business suit. He stood at the flinty edge of the diminished reservoir. The barren, naked rock walls were bleached and parched, the remaining water glinting in the sun like moving mirrors. “Are we actually taking this guy seriously?” someone in the crowd said. The rainmaker held...
I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about change and I’ve reached an obvious conclusion: change is inevitable. It is the defining factor that proves we are alive. There is an endless number of illuminating quotes from experts, writers, and gurus about change, but one I came across I’ve known forever; it appears on the ceiling in dentists’ offices. I’m now looking at it from a new angle—the...
I hated that people thought my father was crazy, because the guys were right: That kind of stuff could be hereditary. It can get mixed up in your genes. I could be next. To make matters worse, about a month after the McGuire thing my father showed up at school one morning at nine o’clock. I’d only been there an hour. He had the vice-principal come and get me out of class, making like there...
I settled in yesterday afternoon to watch the men’s tennis final of the U.S. Open, 34-year-old Novak Djokovic from Serbia vs. 25-year-old Daniil Medvedev of Russia. It was going to be a historic day in tennis. Djokovic was on the cusp of completing the first grand slam in more than 50 years—winning all four of the major tennis tournaments in a calendar year. He’d already won the Australian Open...
Six years ago I launched my first Little Free Library. I was one of the first free libraries in town. Since then, these libraries have been sprouting up all over the place. There must be at least a dozen, maybe fifteen, just in Delmar. It’s hard to keep track of all the competition. So I’ve upped my game and built a new version. My original library had been showing signs of fatigue. One of the...
Philip Roth, toward the end of his writing career (and life; he battled many health problems), wrote a number of short novels. Everyman, which focuses on aging, sickness, regret, and death, is one of the grimmest. The novel opens at the protagonist’s funeral, then cycles back and tells the story of his life: he gave up the dream of being an artist to work as an advertising man. He was married...
I am calm too
The aqueducts originate in three locations: Duluth, on Lake Superior; Milwaukee, on Lake Michigan; and Sandusky, on Lake Erie. Each system of pipelines, tunnels, and open-air channels transfers water east to west. The Duluth pipeline feeds the Sacramento River, the Milwaukee line empties into the Colorado River, and the Sandusky sector ends at the Rio Grande. A half-dozen 1-gigawatt pumping...
This is one of those epic 600-page novels I don’t pick up very often and in this case, I couldn’t put it down. GREAT CIRCLE begins in dramatic fashion early in the twentieth century when Maggie and Jamie Graves, infant twins, are rescued from a sinking ocean liner by their father, the ship’s captain. The father, dubbed Captain Cowardice, is sentenced to prison for not going down with the ship...
Every so often, not very often, I get out of my own head and observe. Not to gather information and form impressions and make assessments, and not to judge and plot and scheme, but to leave all of that behind and do nothing other than experience sunlight glitter on a stream in a way I’ve never noticed. It’s only a moment or two of my attention but for that moment my breath stops when I realize...
I had begun to fear the worst: a family of raccoons had moved in. Or our cottage had become a bat house. Or mold clung like moss to the walls. There would be standing water in the basement, the foundation would be crumbling. Finally, the border to Canada opened. I made the trip up to Thunder Bay. My first impression on seeing the cottage was relief: it looked the same as ever from the outside...
Today marks two years I’ve been fiddling around with this blogging thing. That’s not really an anniversary cake. I’ve co-opted Harriet’s birthday cake again. She baked it herself, but at least I made the icing and frosted the cake. Taking a couple of hours (or less or more) to write a blog post is so unlike the two-year trial of writing a novel that it’s hard to...
If you’ve been reading this blog, you know Ask Dave has had some back and forth dialog with Andy about the sexual harassment allegations against him. I have not gone easy on Andy and suggested he resign, which he has done. In announcing his resignation, New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo said: “In my mind, I have never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn’t realize the...
A few weeks ago the sale on the house across the street closed but no one’s moved in yet. We’re wondering who will be our new neighbors. We look out the window for activity. I might have spotted an elderly couple going in and out one day. Julia said she saw a young mom with a baby and a car seat, along with a couple of Jeeps in the driveway. So, a young family perhaps. I’ve been hoping for that...
August 12, 1989, SANTA CRUZ, CA. The morning begins like most August mornings here—cool and muffled, the fog a layer of insulation over the town, the horn at the harbor tolling a deep note every ten seconds. By midday, the fog has lifted and the beaches are filling up. Monterey Bay is flecked with whitecaps and the glint of sun. The temperature will reach 74 degrees today. As my friend says...
Dear Dave: I really have nowhere else to turn at this point, so I’m writing to you again. Everyone is abandoning me—I mean everyone. My most trusted confidantes are like rats deserting a sinking ship, my executive secretary has quit, and even my old friends Nancy and Joe are calling on me to resign. The media is calling me a power-crazed misogynist. Me of all people! Okay, I’ll admit to a bit of...
