—I KNOW I COULD BE MORE CLEVER The Invisible She kept trying to catch balloons that weren’t there. She said the air was against her and meant it. So, we sat on the sofa, her hands flapping like empty baseball mitts. “I got one,” she said and handed it to me, a zebra-striped thing that popped as soon as I touched it.

—OH, THAT’S ALL YOU GET? ...Can you let me have a moment, please? I’ll take a short one. …Time to write a column. …Why do you own dogs if you’re never home with them? ...It looks like you’ve been up for a while, for a really long time, and I have, too. …Don’t talk shit, that’s just embarrassing. …There’s Show Don’t Tell, but sometimes people Show by Telling, and that’s usually not a good thing. …Karma’s just a different word for bad luck. …I’m running out of ammunition. …“Little Lazarus,” by Michael Bible, may be one of my favorite books ever. …Oh my, I’m on the ceiling again. …Last night was mixed up with a million other nights. …“You can do whatever you want, as long as you do it slowly.” Little Lazarus, Michael Bible …I think of you more than you realize. …I’m not so sure that’s a great idea. …I’m open to suggestions on how we might address your concerns. …When’s the last time you heard “Convoy” by C.W. McCall? …Apparently it can happen to anyone—having your best friend throw you under the bus. …”I’m giving you everything I have. It’s all yours. It’s a way of life if you want it.” Little Lazarus, Michael Bible …I’m starting to hear the sound of waves in my dreams again. …There are a lot of fucking trucks in CA-NV, plus a lot of sand and a lot of ugly. …“I can develop feelings for nearly everyone anytime.” Little Lazarus, Michael Bible …There is nothing worse than remembering joy when misery is at hand. …I bet right now the sun is doing something wonderful to your face. ...You’re not supposed to drink coffee (caffeine) when you have a tremor, but Fuck that. …Who’s to say what really matters? “My father was as big a mystery as God. It took me years to realize that I should’ve been mad at the world instead of him.” Little Lazarus, Michael Bible …I think my problem is I elevate friendship too much because I’m too needy (for God’s sake, just look how grabby I always am in photos.) And all that’s on me. You can’t expect your friends to act like you. That’s not fair or reasonable. …What if none of it even matters? …“I loved him but didn’t know how to love him then. I didn’t understand yet that love was pain endured together. I love him right now. This minute. I love him.” Little Lazarus, Michael Bible …It’s Friday afternoon and I just got home. The dogs are barking plenty hard. What do we do now? …Next Friday is going to be a lot better. Pinkie Swear.

—SOMEBODY’S TELLING ME Sutures It’s time, and so we go down like felled redwoods. The ground rumbles, branches break, phone wires rip and the blueberries bushes catch fire. There’s nothing to save us and we don’t deserve rescue anyway. God is napping hard. The lions are loose and famished. You threw the first plate, chucked it at the wall as a test, the sound like a car crash or the planet exploding. After only a few minutes, the floor was inches thick with shards, yet you removed your shoes and walked across it, painting the chunks of our wedding china the color it should have been all along, your blood a thick red juice. If you’re not going to kill me, I’ll do it myself, you said, like an overachiever who sets goals, like a pundit or a prophet. It wouldn’t have mattered if there weren’t kids involved. You shouted their names, as if remembering the ghosts of their presences hovering in other rooms. You found Band-Aids and gauze. I got big buckets, a whiskbroom and dustbin. We fixed you up and mopped the floor and spritzed the air with a scent resembling lemon meringue pie. When the kids came through the door, you looked up from your magazine and I muted ESPN. Then one of us asked, “So, how was your day?”

—YOU’RE SO FUCKIING GORGEOUS Snake River The otters were playing that day on Snake River when you jumped in. We all thought you were joking, or drunk again, until the splash hit us in the face like a fist, like our father’s grease-stained knuckles. None of said a word. We just watched you stroke and swim, your wake nothing like the otters you chased, but just as meaningful, just as determined to be free.

—I’M SUCH A FOOL FOR YOU …Is that the same cloud from yesterday, hanging up there like a bad head of cauliflower? …Sometimes the answers depend on where you’re looking. …What’re you hiding? What’s in there? …What I never noticed, until it was told to me, is that Leroy and Royel is an anagram. How clever. …I think pushed the wrong button last week. …Tom Brady can look like a total poseur a lot of times, but I’ll always be a fan. …We lost two of the world’s biggest feminists within a week. Our country could use another feminist to believe in. …“She never took energy from a room, she gave energy back to the room.” Melissa Etheridge on Dolly Parton …I don’t think you can habve too much Dolly. …“Sometimes you just have to be willing to put on the clown nose and take a risk.” Shawn Hatosy …I think it’s time we lifted the curse. …“I have always loved everything about you, even what I didn’t understand.” Albert Camus …I’m anything but not clever. … "They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art." ―Charlie Parker …Most writers would be discouraged to see their fingers aren’t moving but whenever I see mine aren’t, I say, “Yay,” out loud. …There better be a Heaven. …What good is it if you only play the game that’s been given to you? …Every writer I know says they own too many books, and it’s not a contest, but just look around here and see if you don’t find yourself saying, “Holy hell.” …I think we need more bread. …What if the ceiling doesn’t own a roof? What then? …If I’m not mistaken, I think I learned that from you. …There’s another dead soldier. …There’s another metaphor only 2 percent will get, but hey, so what? …No, we have to keep going. ...“It’s not about showing weakness or projecting yourself as someone who’s strong. It’s about doing a thing that can’t be defined.” Jalen Hurts …It was really strange, about a month or so ago, watching someone pull up one of my Friday blog posts and reading it out loud to a group of 15 people. It felt really awkward, of course, but the weird thing was most all of them got what I was saying, or they got it in a way that meant something to them. … “To change your life, you need to change your priorities.” Mark Twain …“I think you need to be in Canada to understand how deep the animosity to the US is.” Denise Humphrey, Winnipeg. (I understand what you’re saying Denise, but I think you’re wrong. You only have to live in the US.) …It’s truly astonishing how corrupt and inept this administration is: …‘I wouldn’t call it a war.’ Vice President Vance said Thursday that he wouldn’t call the military operation between the U.S. and Iran “a war,” despite the eruption of hostilities this week. (No, you’re right; it’s not a war—we only exchanged 150 bombs in five days and we’ve only spent $145 BILLION so far.) …JD Vance says he’s doing ‘God’s work – and if that leads to the end times, OK’ “The president didn’t mean any offense. Obviously, he loves Christians … Did Donald Trump mean to post a meme of himself as God? No. The president has a good sense of humor. He did not mean to mock or mimic God. That’s just not who he is.” The Guardian (You’re right again, he never mocks anyone.) …Trump administration seeks to strip private schools’ tax-exempt status if they consider race (This really does sound familiar, like Nazi Germany targeting Jewish people.) … Trump Administration Begins Blitz to Find Elusive Voter Fraud Ahead of Midterms Election fraud is exceedingly rare, but President Trump has fixated on rooting it out this year, claiming without evidence that tens of thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote. The government is privately calling the effort the Unlawful Voter Initiative and is pulling agents from their normal duties, which include investigating such serious crimes as human trafficking and terrorism. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/us/politics/trump-election-voter-fraud.html?emc=edit_na_20260902&nl=breaking-news&segment_id=225918 … Pentagon cuts internal access to classified documents after The Washington Post reporting on military concerns about Iran war … Trump floats renaming Strait of Hormuz after himself (The Hill) …US Mint officially launches $1 coin featuring Trump The United States Mint released 250,000 $1 coins Wednesday featuring President Trump’s likeness to commemorate the nation’s 250th anniversary. …Trump ranks himself the greatest US president ever. Historians beg to differ. (That’s what I call being a Christian, showing humility. I have never in my life known a “person” more pathologically narcissistic than this monster.) …The above insanity is just in the last FOUR days. It’s amazing, and so sad, that the Republican Party (who holds the majority in both houses) allows this because they’re too scared they’ll lose their jobs. The people can protest all they want, but they’re not the ones with the power. Anyway… …I get to see my bestie in three days. We’ll solve the world’s problems. …You must know something I don’t. Why’re you so happy? …Well, it just goes to show you; everybody’s from somewhere. ...Hey, Sparky, how’s a nap sound? “The world is the closed door. It is a barrier. And at the same time it is the way through.” Simone Weil …I have a new musical group obsession. I mean, if you have the balls to sing “Linger,” basically a cappella, I’m going to pay attention. …I really have no life skills. Like I have none. I can’t fix a thing. Most times I can’t even fix myself. …You can tell me anything. I’m a good listener. Is that a life skill? …Anyone who says, “I’ll never judge you.” automatically scores bonus points with me. But it all depends on if they genuinely mean it. …Sometimes you realize, that’s as close as you’re going to get to the thing you want, and then you just have to figure out how to deal with it. …I never really thought I’d cry at that, but I’m a soft touch. …I don’t have access to a Swedish ladder, but if I did… …“It’s obviously ridiculous to say somebody is ‘pro-abortion.’ Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I think I’ll have an abortion. It’s a pleasurable experience.’ The question is not pro-abortion or anti-abortion, the question is who makes the decision: a woman and her physician, or the government.” Gloria Steinem …Anyone can be passive-aggressive if their underwear is on too tight. …Someday…I think I hate those somedays. …Yesterday, I saw the LAKE HOURS sign floating down the water, untethered somehow. It was almost as if I was hallucinating. …What’s weird is a lot of people actually want to go to Las Vegas. Isn’t there any other place you’d want to go? …“Don’t forget to make your picks!” …I can hear you talking down there, but you’re not talking to me. …I don’t care about what my watch wants to tell me, but sometimes it tells me something important. …The deer have found all the dropped apples in the yard. I’ve seen at least 20 in the last week. I’ll drive up the driveway and be four feet from three of them, roll down the window and have a chat, and they never budge, even though they’re four feet away. It’s astounding. …This is where I should be and you should be, too. …“I think she’s a national treasure. There is so much in that voice. She’s a petite little person, but when she opens her mouth you hear her region of America, and you hear the suffering and hardship, and you also hear the love and compassion.” Don Henley about Dolly Parton, 2015 …I know I’ma gonna lose them when the wheels fall off. …I haven’t seen that guy in ages. …Uh oh, he’s pulling out the footstool again. ...I’ll have breakfast eventually, I promise. Just promise me back you won’t watch me snoring over the bowl. …Wait, didn’t I tell you that already? …Who are you talking to if it’s not me? …I still think about that four-year-old boy across the lake about to have a birthday party. I think about it every day. It’s hard not to when his house looks right at me. …I know I know I know. Write something happy for once. …the lone katydid The nighttime insect chorus reaches fortissimo in late August, filling the dark with its mating calls. In the woods outside New York, it’s bliss to sit still and listen through the open window to male katydids invisibly trying to out-fiddle other suitors. I do it as the poet Diane Ackerman, one of the most perceptive chroniclers of the natural world, advises: “Eyes closed and jaw relaxed into a smile, which gives the brain a rest from the whole seeing-is-believing thing.” Insomnia offers few gifts, but one I cherish as I lie awake as dawn arrives is the call of the last katydid, the lone romantic who’s pulled an all-nighter and bravely keeps up his song after everyone else has scurried off to avoid being eaten by morning birds. The name “katydid” is onomatopoetic, from the three-syllable sound the insects make. In the early hours, instead of what Ackerman calls a “tattletale” (“Katy did! Katy did!”), I hear a plaintive cry: “Anyone? Anyone?” It’s heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time, this solitary soul hoping to meet someone before the lights come on. --Melissa Kirsch, “The Good List,” The New York Times

 

—INTO THE MYSTIC, WOULD HAVE STAYED THERE WITH YOU MY WHOLE LIFE

                 

                                    

Birthmark     

My sister wrote words on her skin using colored markers that streaked like blood.  Her penmanship was a tiny scrawl, almost Asian-looking, and to be able to read it you had to get very close, with her permission, and she’d have to stop squirming.

It was hard not to shudder the first time I visited.  I thought places like that were supposed to help the addicted, but my sister looked gaunt and ghoulish.  When I inquired about the writing, she pulled her sleeves down and started crossing and uncrossing her arms until I glanced away.  “It’s better than needles,” she said.  Then she added, “You probably don’t even believe it anymore.”

“What’s that?”

“You and I being twins.”

We’d begun the same, then turned opposite corners with dull edges.  The sharp edges had just come recently.  Before, she was light and I was dark.  I had a habit of destroying things: television sets, furniture, other people’s self-esteem.  My sis sang sweet choir songs.  She wore dresses while my parents glowed, making me no more than a birthmark, a shadow, some gutted placenta.

It was cruel the way I set her up with Devon.  He always gave the first gram free, but I paid cash so she’d have five.  By the fourth, she was circling Jupiter and I was washing up.

Now it does hurt a little to see what I’ve created, but I figure Sis will toughen up, sober up eventually.  She might even sing again.

 

--TELL ME A SECRET, HONEY, MAKE IT COUNT

 

Cemetery Kids

 

When there was nothing left to do, we kicked dirt, boot-hard, watched the clods burst like obscene rainclouds.

Gordy was wasted that day at the cemetery, said he’d jump in the grave if we got him another jug of Mogen David. He could be quirky that way, or needy like me, though I was always too afraid to show it.

Unannounced, Manny shot me in the chest with his squirrel hunting bb gun. I didn’t swear or cry out. Didn’t wince or grimace. My mind wandered like property that no longer belonged to me, and I let myself fall into the hole. Just closed my eyes the way you might during prayer. 

It pierced the skin below my left nipple, the one Monica Westfall used to tweak back when Gramp’s car still ran, in the fold-out seats, the both of us circling around the “L” word as if we knew what we were talking about.