To all my friends, family, co-workers, assorted acquaintances and good people of earth – I hope you are having a lovely and fulfilling Christmas! (You know, if you’re into that kinda thing.)
Some Christmas Day advice: if you’re hungry, Sonic is open. However, they will forget your $4 popcorn chicken. And your fries. And you’ll be too distracted by holiday cheer to check the bag before driving home. And it’s a bit too nasty out to go back for it. And you’ll be left with mediocre burgers (but tasty tater tots…). …

This article was originally published a few years ago as a guest column in the Edwardsville Intelligencer’s “Edge” weekend insert.
While out shopping with a female friend, we stop to examine a kiosk selling trendy purses and belts made entirely of big, dangly sequins in bold, fluorescent colors. I fear someone has accosted a figure skater and stolen their outfit for raw materials.
“I should get one of those,” my friend says, her face a canvas for disco-ball refractions cast by sparkling handbags. I raise an eyebrow. This young woman, characterized by …

Originally Posted to Blogger – Monday, December 17, 2007
It’s been some time since I’ve written here. As you may or may not know, I lost my mother at the end of October. It was very unexpected, and the single most difficult and damaging experience of my life. You expect a trauma like that to affect you, but I think ‘how’ is always the big surprise. My family and I are healing, and I appreciate all the help we received during this trying time – particularly from The Armada who, as …

Originally Posted to Blogger – Monday, January 22, 2007
My “underground” month continues, though the last two weeks without the benefit of being on vacation. I’ve learned an important lesson in these 14 days: I am not one of those “write my best stuff at 2:00am” nocturnal writers. I am way more productive in the typical 9-to-5, probably as a side effect of working that for years.
Now that I’m back in my daily work routine, I’ve generally been fitting an hour or two in a night, between 8:00pm and midnight. My …

Originally Posted to Blogger – Thursday, September 28, 2006
Here’s a few random-ish observations – a bloggin’ catch-all.
. Heroes – I was super excited to see the premiere of Heroes on NBC this past Monday. Advance word was really positive, and the premise sounded like a cousin to J. Michael Straczynski’s turbulent but often brilliant comic maxi-series Rising Stars. Unfortunately, I wasn’t very thrilled with the pilot. There’s some intriguing ideas happening in it, but it struck me as NBC’s attempt at a Lost styled fanta-drama (that’s a new word, folks, …

Originally Posted to Blogger – Tuesday, September 05, 2006
5:00pm, Saturday, September 2nd: Sitting in the hotel restaurant, I realized my glasses were no longer in my tuxedo jacket pocket. I had taken them off for the wedding party pictures and had been very deliberate about keeping them in my coat pocket. Yet they had vanished, and it threw me into a freak out.
As Amy astutely pointed out, I’m kind of OCD about what I do with my personal effects. My glasses, cellphone, keys and wallet are either on my person, …

From MySpace blog: Monday, May 29, 2006

This morning, I wondered when I would hear about my class reunion. It’s been ten years, and I figured it had to happen soon. I’m not really interested in going, but that doesn’t mean I’m not curious.
So, as coincidences go, I check my email this evening, and I’ve got a message from a Liz Lunk, which totally looks like a spam email to me, a name I don’t know. But the subject line was ‘class of 96 reunion coming soon’, and I realize it’s …

Originally Posted to Blogger – Tuesday, February 07, 2006
A groomsman again. The new writing gig.
Over the weekend, my friends Gene and Mary got engaged. They’ve been together for over a year and a half, and live together in New York. Gene was the bass player in my old band, Kessel Run. I met Mary in the theatre department at SIUE, but didn’t really get to know her until Carrie inducted her into the Armada. When my wife’s father died unexpectedly, Mary proved herself an invaluable support, having experienced a similar …

Originally Posted to Blogger – Tuesday, July 05, 2005
The ups and downs of finding a new domicile. Running on empty.
Last night, Wen (my wife) and I were up till 4:30am talking with my friend Travis (the recent divorcee). Fortunately, it wasn’t bitter talk of love lost and trust broken, but instead an indepth look back on our group of friends (the affectionately termed Armada) and our years together. It was one of those conversations you hate to cut off, but when you have to be up at 6:00am, you’ve gotta …

Originally posted to Blogger – Sunday, July 03, 2005
Re-acquainting with old friends. The new divorcee.
Last night was the wedding of my friend Becky Gehling. I met Becky back when I was an assistant youth director for Nameoki United Methodist Church in Granite City, IL. This would have been around 1996-1998, during my freshman and sophomore years of college. Becky was a senior the year I started, so she was more of a peer, not one of my “kids”. Eventually she met Travis (a couple of years my junior in high …