Category: Journal
My Typical Day (five year update)
Five years ago I wrote an account of my typical day. A lot has changed since then, so I thought I’d revisit the topic. Here’s what my typical day looks like now. We wake up to the sound of music, a long slow fade-in that starts at 5:45 AM. Sometimes I set my phone alarm […]
Read More → My Typical Day (five year update)Apostaversary
Today I celebrate a quarter-century of atheism. A quarter century? Why yes. Here is an entry from my journal 25 years ago today: October 28th, 1984 10:58 PM Sunday God. I used to believe in God. But do I now? I don’t think so. I can’t see any reason to. And if I must accept […]
Read More → ApostaversaryApril 5, 2009
The day started off badly enough. I wasn’t feeling so hot — one too many gin and tonics the night before. But I roused myself up to go to the Great Green Bike Ride, part of the New Orleans Earth Day Festival. I was there to represent FOLC, as the Lafitte Corridor was the first […]
Read More → April 5, 2009My Typical Day
Usually in journals we concentrate on what distinguishes one day from the others. But sometimes it’s good to contemplate what our days have in common. As Terry Whitefeather once said, “My typical day is never typical,” but nevertheless some general patterns emerge. Forthwith, a “typical” weekday. We wake up to the sound of music. For […]
Read More → My Typical DayMarch 25, 2009
This morning Xy unplugged one appliance in the kitchen to plug in the toaster. Unfortunately the cord from the first appliance landed in the second toaster slot. So now we have black melted plastic in the toaster and a damaged power cord. Both can be repaired, but it remains an object lesson in why you […]
Read More → March 25, 2009March 19, 2009
Five minutes after I got to work this morning, Boss Lady gave me the bad news. Olivia’s husband died last night. He had bone cancer, the kind you don’t recover from. He went into the hospital in December and essentially never came out. I didn’t know Michael well, only met him a couple times. But […]
Read More → March 19, 2009September 6, 2003
So once again I take pen in hand, motivated by the vague notion that my life is slipping away, unexamined, unrecorded. Does writing, or the contemplation that writing engenders, somehow slow the passage of time? I am sitting on the deck in back of our house. It is a lazy Saturday afternoon. My back hurts […]
Read More → September 6, 2003July 7, 2001
London — The overnight sleeper train was expensive but definitely worth it. Trains and planes are the way to go — fuck a bus, except for getting around a city. It’s around 8:00 AM, foggy and damp. I’m in Regent’s Park, making my way to Leinster Square the slow way — by walking. Leinster Square […]
Read More → July 7, 2001July 6, 2001
Edinburgh — I’m sitting on a bench on a hill in a park looking across a small valley at the most incredible array of stone buildings. When I got off the bus here three days ago, the site of Edinburgh made up for the eight-hour overnight ride, which sucked big-time. But I haven’t spent the […]
Read More → July 6, 2001July 3, 2001
Helsinki — I’ve been riding one of the public bikes around the city this morning. You put in a ten-mark coin as a deposit, which unlocks the bike. Then you ride around wherever you want, with your coin wedged in its slot in your handlebars. When you return it to any of the public bike racks, […]
Read More → July 3, 2001June 30, 2001
In the Finnish countryside: I wasn’t sure what it would be like to see Päivi again after 15 years, but very quickly we were talking as if no time had passed at all. It seems odd that it could be so very natural, but so it was. We sat on the porch of her apartment […]
Read More → June 30, 2001June 27, 2001
Tampere: So much modern “International Style” architecture in America is so ugly. There is a lot of this sort of architecture in Tampere, and some of it is just as ugly, but somehow much of it is not. Why? What’s the difference? As I write this I’m sitting at the foot of yet another church, […]
Read More → June 27, 2001June 26, 2001
Tampere: Damn I’m tired — combination of jet lag, three nights of inadequate sleep, and the fatigue of travel, the stress of being in a foreign country. Also the memories evoked by being in Scandinavia again are mildly confusing, though mostly pleasant. I’m sitting on a bench in a public square in Tampere, in front […]
Read More → June 26, 2001Protected: October 19th
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Read More → Protected: October 19thA Particular Day in My Life
Here’s an account of a single day, August 2nd, 1999. This was originally published in my friend Rachel’s zine Daybook. I get up around 7:00 or 7:30. I shower and shave. For breakfast I eat a bowl of granola with rice milk. I grab a carrot and an apple, and leave the apartment around 8:00. […]
Read More → A Particular Day in My Life