A couple weeks ago I stole some sage from the herb garden of a house I’m working on. No harm, no foul; the owners are gone until the spring. I took it for one particular meal, butternut and goat cheese pizza, which I ate last week. Tonight I took most of the rest of the…

1. How does one start an online casino? Asking for a friend. 2. A trending phrase structure I’ve noticed in the last few weeks is “the _______ of it all.” It’s the new verbing a noun. The I wish I had started it of it all is that I’m coming into it late but it’s…

I took stock of my incomings and outgoings and made myself a sort of budget, and confirmed the conclusion that I’ve had for a while now, that I’m just barely hanging on. Just now I sat down intending to work on the novel I’m writing but this is coming out instead. All day and week…

I just want to eat homemade specialty pizzas in sweatpants and hoodies before I sleep all day. Is that depression? Or autumn?

I’m coming here to write after the kid has gone to sleep but before I get to the hampers of clean but wrinkling clothes and the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. Because I’m wanting to make this the chore. I need this to be the chore. Did I brush my teeth? Did I…

I carry with me the sorrow of friends who are survivors of sexual violence. And I mean in my own small way: I suspect a dull echo compared to what they carry. In the first few years after sitting with them, literally, and I hope empathetically, in parking lots or on AOL Instant Messenger, listening…

First there is the anger and the fear. Which lays which I can’t say; they build on each other like a dry stone wall, held by gravity and stress. There’s both a scramble and focus. Lock the doors, inside and out. Drop the blinds. I am getting better at controlling the anger. In the past…

I shouldn’t be out here eating junk food and drinking beer. J has chosen to sleep in the spare room this week. We’ve been reading the Chronicles of Narnia; I like to get her to smile by saying, “Juniper, from War Drobe in the land of Spareroom?” in a bad British accent. We’re reading the…

I slept for 12 hours. It’s been so long since I haven’t woken up at 3 in the morning. I know there are things that I need to do, and I know one of them is self-compassion, but what if I just go on being lazy and call it compassion? I’ve been out of bed…