Weird stuff, awkward stuff, and where’d-that-come-from stuff. Very helpful resources here.
August, 2018: We get our milk deliveries to Mabel on Tuesdays from a vendor who is really bad at delivering milk. He doesn't deliver other products. He only does dairy. And yet every week, his brusque taciturn cronies wheels in dollies stacked with crates and tell us that the vendor is out of skim, out…
January, 2018: It’s early, but it's one of the first days of the year that spring is in the air. It smells different. It's such a good smell, I decide to jog. I’m not very good at jogging. I get out of breath easily and then I get grumpy. But maybe today, the sun and…
April, 2018: Down the street from Stone Way Cafe is MiiR, a coffee shop boasting sleek, hard benches, so much concrete construction there’s no cell reception, and and sour beers on tap. MiiR would never host an open mic. There’s a coworking space in the back for people to rent out, which is currently occupied…
Late March, 2018: I’m at Stone Way Cafe, and I came here to work on writing my as yet-untitled book, but you, sir, are up on the stage playing guitar and I can’t look away. You’re the fourth act of open mic—it’s 5:30, too damn early for an open mic—and you’re 28, you just said…
Continue reading ➞ You’d Look Better with your Sleeves Rolled Up.
I'm in Fremont with my brother and sister-in-law. We put eight potatoes in foil and bake them in the oven. 90 minutes later, I prod one and it is squishy. The potato burns the pad of my finger. Ashley and David prod them, and maybe the potatoes burn the pads of their fingers too, but…
In June of 2019, I had the honor of delivering the commencement speech to graduating seniors at my former elementary and high school in Tacoma. Here is its text: Concordia Christian Academy, Class of 2019, I first want to offer my congratulations to you all. Getting to graduation is hard, and it takes a long…
I'm finishing up the edits on the draft of my book because I'm writing a book about my experience on the World Race in 2014. It's so much work and I'm still chugging, I've been chugging since it was dark and cold and now it's hot and light and I'm still chugging. I still don't have…
I boarded the 40 around noon on Thursday and there weren't many people on it, but there was a woman with sensible pink lipstick and cropped gray hair and a pleasant demeanor speaking with a man across the aisle who had a red beard and a dirty reusable grocery bag full of old things and…
I'm writing a book. It's about... just click that link. I'm halfway through a painstaking round of edits: so far, I've got through Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Bulgaria, Albania, and Zambia. I'm keeping a list of everything I've fact-checked. why scary airplane landing tegucigalpa la ermita meaning honduras how dangerous ranking what's up with rebar cinderblock…
I finished working at 11, so I put some cheese, an apple, and a day-old pistachio-blackberry croissant in the passenger seat and drove to Issaquah to hike to Poo Poo Point, a knoll on the side of Tiger Mountain. The Washington Trails Association is adamant that Poo Poo Point is named for the train whistles…
One day on the camino, I got talking to a woman and she told me this story, this fable: “Sometimes I do some personal assistant work for this older man back in Scotland. He lives downtown, and he’s got a terrier, and the terrier gets a walk every day, on the same route on the…
I stumbled across a poem by Constantine Petrou Cavafy called Ithaka. As I walked, I memorized an English translation of it, and it’s served as a guide throughout the Camino, urging me on when I'm unmotivated, slowing me down when I rush, inviting me to enjoy myself when I'm afraid of spending money, reminding me…
