I like happy endings. It’s why I read romance novels for so long—I want the romantic kiss and the sunset and the ever-after where the music surges joyfully and has got harmonicas in it and everything is swell and nothing will ever be sad, not ever again.
The problem with happy endings, though, is figuring out [...]

When I was young, some ridiculous age like, say, five or twenty nine or something, I suddenly conceived of books as objects, that were created. They were wonderful stories full of magic and wonder and whatever the fuck, yes, true, but—someone made those stories. Someone thought up those  stories and wrote them down and other [...]

Min is not actually my dog. No matter how much I loved her the very most more than anything, and no matter how much she loved me greater than pies and ham, she does not actually belong to me, and I do not actually belong to her, except in our hearts. She belongs to E’s [...]

Hey, look at that. You wait long enough, and the seasons will go and change on you. It won’t say a word of apology for how long it took, how delayed it is, how it didn’t call and let you know what was going on, how it showed up smelling like smoke and with lipstick [...]

It happened with a quickness that is still a little puzzling to me, and makes me think that it was some extended practical joke that was broadcast live somewhere in a European country where smoking is still considered sexy. Things were rough, for a bit—a crazy man and threats of having my dog put down, [...]

I didn’t realize that it had been so long.  It’s felt like forever and ever, but I thought that was just because Time Had Lost All Meaning Down Here in the Bottom of the Well So Deep That When You Look Up You Only See Night’s Endless Blackness and the Cold, Uncaring White Light of [...]

Since around 2001, I’ve had a online journal, which means that since 2001, I’ve chronicled the majority of my depressive cycles, sometimes in breathtaking detail, and sometimes just with one meaningful post heavy on the choking/drowning/black hole/night sky metaphors that really, you know, capture the feeling of a severe bout of depression and or despair.
Sometimes [...]

Before, I really thought I needed a vacation. And then, after this week-and-a-bit, I really did need a vacation, really, really badly. It’s been a hell of a week-and-a-bit, and the thought that I would get out of town and away from everything, soon, sooner, in two days, in one day, tomorrow, has been [...]