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: Sunday, June 18, 2006

Friday, on the east-bound Metrolink train, I’m standing at the folding doors waiting to disembark. A small group of African-American children crowd in around me. One lad, with mischievious eyes and a cherubic smile, steps up beside me and waves.
Lad: “Hi! My name’s Leon. I’m 12 years old and in the 7th grade.” Pause for dramatic effect and then, with gusto: “And I’m black.”
I appraise him with arched eyebrow and ask, “Really?”
His grin broadens. “Yeah.”
“Huh,” I say, and return the smile. “Neat!”
He laughs, the …

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 …

From MySpace Blog: Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the weird shit I’ve experienced in my time:
I’ve see two different types of UFOs on at least 3 separate occasions
A friend and I once fell under the grip of what I could only describe as a demonic presence
I have entered into a rural cornfield with a group of friends, armed, and been surrounded by unidentified… things… in the field – after finding a patch of glowing crop
I have experienced lost time
A door once opened into my outstretched …

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 – Sunday, July 10, 2005
Beginning to pack. Searching for canine companionship.
Started the packing process today. Packing is such a drawn out exercise in distraction. Everytime I get a box almost perfectly filled, there is always that small empty space that I must compulsively fill. I’ll run around the entire house looking for that certain knick-knack, paperback or whatever that will fill the space just so. There’s also much time spent sorting through old papers, throwing stuff away, evaluating whether or not to keep junior high report …

Originally Posted to Blogger – Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Just sealed the deal on our new house in O’Fallon. Chatted outside with the landlord for a half hour. He seems like a really cool fellow. A graying, late-forties father of 3 boys, he is very youthful, hip on current music, and easy to talk with. Apparently he’s divorced and dating, as he mentioned his girlfriend. Somehow, that’s encouraging – I can’t put my finger on why, exactly.
We strolled through the house again, this time sizing up the space for serious furniture …

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 …