Month: December 2012

  • My favorite books of 2012

    I gotta say, it’s been a good year of reading. Part of that may be because I have made more of an effort to abandon books that aren’t doing it for me — and furthermore, not to even pick up a book unless it really interests me or has been personally recommended. It’s still hard…

  • Blogging on Christmas Eve feels a bit like shouting into a cave. It’s dark and lonely and no one’s listening. But don’t we all like to shout into caves sometimes? Isn’t it nice to imagine that you can say anything? … Regaining youth When you’re young, you think everyone reads what you read. You think…

  • Barceloneta

    July 2005 Step off the Metro. Blast of heat, humidity, traffic, voices. Far off, maybe the drone of surf. In, out, in, out. Slurping at shore. Cross the busy street. Flip flops slap against pavement. Thunk against sand. Pass through the skateboarding exhibition. Giant half-pipe with speakers mounted up top. Neck craned to watch leaps,…

  • Memory and memorial

    Once when I was about 8, I was riding my bike on the sidewalk in front of my house. When I got to my neighbor’s oddly-angled driveway, the bike twisted, toppled over, and slid into the street, dragging my knee across the rocky pavement. I remember the shock of bright red blood covering my skin,…

  • All the more frightening

    From Honest Illusions by Nora Roberts: “People tell their children there are no monsters in the world. They tell them that because they believe it, or they want the child to feel safe. But there are monsters… all the more frightening because they look like people.”