Summer Mist
A fog lifted from the sea has drifted inland and stayed awhile atop the hill where we live. A bank...

A Look Worthy of Baudelaire

When I am in the creative state, my external communication skills become more primitive as the words on the screen become more eloquent.

Fixing Things

I intend to extract one of two types of writer's revenges....

What the Fork?

Sometimes when I am in chatrooms where the word is prohibited, I have my own collection of "acceptable variants" on the word. "Fark!" is one of the words. "Fork!" also works well as in "It's none of your forking business!"

A fit of pique

No one said goodbye.

End to Ratings
I decided to remove the ratings from this page. I was getting mostly favorable ratings from my reviewers, but...

Scars

I have to feel that the tips of my pen cut the paper, like I'm ritually scarring the page.

Unrecovered Memories

I hate it when some people go rolling out their "past" like a heavily retouched wallet photo. "Recovered memories" seem gruesomely unreal because they are unreal.

Image Poem

(Post fondly dedicated to Warpster93, a weaver and perceiver of shadows)

Yet Another Survey
31.25 %My weblog owns 31.25 % of me.Does your weblog own you? I'm a free man! Well, nearly....

To Sleep, Mischance to Dream

Dreams are a crazy salad of all kinds of things.

100 Facts
Just to get the thing done with and to show that I am as self-absorbed as the next blogger, I've...

Silverado Canyon

Summer is the season of death in Southern California....

Just Another Day in the Spam Mail Box

I remember the days when I could open my email box and find actual, personal messages ....

Parallels in the Same Universe

"What's his rush? Or what right does he think he's protecting?"

I've Done It Now

I cry.

Dream
I'm hiking in a national park, one by a large lake or the sea. I'm alone. The trail I'm on...

Blog-a-thon Woes
Blog-a-thon Woes I wish I could sponsor someone for the Blogathan, but we are pinched thanks in part to three...

Where the Writing Is
I'm back to note taking. Spending time trying to understand the mind of the main character as he experiences a...

Heat

The breezes that moved the trees and cooled nothing on Wednesday have paused.

Capillary Action

If I've cleaned up right, reading this account will be the first the Empress learns of our new calamity.

What is it?
It's a cactus. A trilobed form I bought a few weeks ago in the garden section of Home Depot....

Paring It Down
I've cut the length of this main page so that only the last three days appear. The rest are not...

Semi-Hallucination

This is how burnout feels.

Ganesha Help Me Out!
Consider these phrases: is - the certainty of possibility could be - the uncertainty of possibility could not be -...

Another quiz the Empress is going to want to take
When it comes to being mysterious, that's what you do best. You like to leave others puzzled and speak...

Vulcan's Children

I've seen some big fires in my time, conflagrations that swept across the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains in minutes. They were a pretty sight at night when the orange lines slowed in their progress over the hills as if to give the firefighters a rest; they were most horrid during the day when they spewed smoke tumors and dropped glowing, nigreous flakes of hot carbon onto our street, some two miles behind the city limit.

Where the Writing Is
Today I find myself between chapters, making notes on characters and storylines for the next. I sit in the chair...

The Blog Obsession!

Obsession seems to be a common syndrome that bloggers fight.

CATechism

I have been informed by the best of all possible authorities....that humans greatly misunderstand the reverence that cats bestow on themselves.

A True Finish
I gave a true finish to Chapter 2 today. The previous version has too few words. It had a preliminary...

Tully's Coffee Shop

Today she walked up to the window that opens next to the rattan chairs I've used the last few times I came here. Then she stopped when I looked up and sputtered "How's it going?" before she ran back behind the counter and hid on the side beside the cash register.

Hot Times

It's nearly August and the cry goes out across the land "It's too damn hot!"

Don't Tell John Ashcroft About This

I do wish trees wouldn't involve me in their sex lives.

Black Oil Sunflower Seed

I know nothing of avian politics, but they all know that there is black oil sunflower seed to be had on the deck with the cacti, the impatiens, and the dwarf date palm.

Falling in Love All the Time

I'm not as stupid as the Piltdown Man....

Do I dare eat a peach?

In terms of age, I may be in the top 5% of all bloggers.

Celebration
I treated myself to a Raspberry Tango at Tully's today as a reward for finishing Chapter 2 of my "fiction...

What's wrong with America?

<The_Christian_Zionist> the USA Is awsome .. and thanks to Bin Laden .. we have our enemies identified so its going to be a really cool war

The Blank Check

I'm discovering if you want to get the lowdown on American corruption in time to head something off, you need to read the overseas papers.

Comments Now
You can now comment on the postings here!...

Samantha Runnion

The Runnion story is an old one, it seems, as old as human lust and panic.

This is going to look like a gloat
What Was Your PastLife?...

One of the few things you're going to see me say about Israel/Palestine

This has never been one of my favorite subjects.

Changes on A Fossil Dune

Australian aborigines soak the features of the earth they walk upon in their mythology. Even rough badlands -- dried splashes of mud -- receive histories from the old men who remember the wisdom of the tribe.

Crazy Tracy Again

Drugs aren't the answer to the depression. They are the floor that you put down so that you won't be getting sucked up in the mud while you address the life issues that are getting you down.

The Emerald Hell

I am not proud of what I was.

Chlorine in the Falls

I sigh and think of the gold fish that could be there instead of the stink of anti-bacterial paranoia.

Of Printer's Devils and Needlework

My grandmother was a talented artist with the needle and thread. She knew how to create eye-deceiving dappling that made her works seem alive.

White Buckwheat

I look outside at the sharp sandstone ridges and half domes and I feel like them -- half-clothed with "soft chaparral" like buckwheat that cracks when you pick a piece and explodes when you set a spark to it.

Thoughts on the Beast

I remember one morning when I sat up in my bed and woke up my wife. "Lynn," I said to the Empress. "I'm sick."

Is Saint Rasputin Next?

Nicolas III...does not inspire [supporters of his canonization] to tell the truth, which is one of the highest forms of Good. This should be reason enough to reject for all time any claims on his sainthood.

Invisible Rhinos at the Zoo

Rowan was certain that there was a "mama" in every cage, that there were no polygamists among the beasts, and that all the baby animals had young sisters and brothers.

Five things you wouldn't know about me from reading my blog

You'll just have to look!

The Real Moral Decline

Tabloids seem to teach us two things: that we can never trust news claims of corruption and second that it isn't worth being good because you will be killed.

Dream
The prison stood in the middle of the city, a gigantic skyscraper that covered a whole block with no windows....

The Language of Quitters

After Vietnam, Watergate, Iran-Contra, Whitewater, the Impeachment Imbroglio, the Starrish Inquisition, and the Stolen Election, Americans may have given up on the expectation of integrity for those in public office. Instead of striving for betterment, we are merely happy with the idea that we're lousing up no worse than before.

Passed Over

It can be frustrating when the hills are dessicated by the drought to watch so much water being shipped East to places where they really don't want it.

If

The word "if" doesn't seem to exist in some chatters' vocabularies.

Findings
Prostitute Rescue Organizations (Serious!) XXXChurch (The one serious link on Sister Taffy's page -- anti-porn exploitation) Surrealist Compliment Generator...

Beneath Mount Santiago

I'm a middle aged Jeremiah, pointing to the Jehoiakim in the White House, and watching as no one reads the scrolls he puts out.

Is Chat my only strength?

To be quite frank, I get rather tired of seeing my friends in views falling for the same bait every time.

#news_garden debacle

Last night, I was accused by some people of "punishing" my friends for the actions of the predators who have taken over #news_garden.

Findings
Jail the Bastards (Serious!) Mystery Museum Chupacabra Home Page Prawnography!...

Flight from Heat and Unsaid Advice to the Young

Before the sun can turn my condo into a broiler, I get in my truck and glide down the hill to Tully's, to spend my afternoon writing to old Sixties and Seventies tunes.

Neighborly Interest

What would they make of the discussions of the chat room disputes, my takes on contemporary politics, my mystical forays into the zoo, my thinking about photography, my rants, my love of absurd web sites, my expressions of uncertainty? Would they try to cure me?

Chat Asylum?

Perhaps it is just a gladiator's pit.

One Nation, Indivisible

Over the last few generations....some zealots have allowed government encroachment, Roman style, into religious affairs.

Weird Links
Sister Taffy's Christian (Baptist) Home Without Sin Biblical Curse Generators...

Trolling

I perceive that trolling, like murder, can be defined in much the same way as a matter of degree....

A Place in History

I've been through all of these phenomena and a few more besides, but I think that it was my experiences on the abUSENet and mailing lists that truly drove me to the variety of online writing in which I now indulge.

In Sickness

The fever came upon me last night.

Dream
When I woke from my afternoon nap, the sun was shining through the Venetian blinds. It scored me with long...

Rhinos Nearing Their Dusk

"I wouldn't screw you if you were the last rhino on earth!"

Notes on Another Nocturnal Intrusion

Bactrians. Two humps on each.

Horn and Hoof Mesa, Notes in Words and Icons

Moving down the serpentine road past various species of gazelle that all look like Thompson's to me but are identified as distinct species by the informational signs.

The Photographer and the Writer

A critic in a writing course I took last fall told me that she thought my writing sounded like I looked at the world like a camera.

Advice from Self to Self

When you leave a place or situation, take count of your friends.

Elephantasy

The elephant enclosure at the San Diego Wild Animal Park hurls its reeking tarp over your nose well before you see any elephants.

Flattery from a cat

Ambrose dips his paws in the water and sucks them dry.

An Irony of IRC

A clique can hold a channel open for a very long time, though few care to visit it.

Recovery

I understand that my ardent detractors did a victory dance when word reached the channel of my resignation.

Holocaust Denial

Would that the number were only 300,000 as some hope!

Writing from the Road

I almost can't write on the road.

I am not a #news_garden op: I am a free man!

The more hours that pass from my resignation, the greater the feeling of relief.

Resigned

One certain sign that things aren't going well is when you spend a lot of time in arguments over who is whose victims.