My masseur, introduced to me as Vladimir, was approximately 5 cubits wide and 3 cubits tall. The “luxury spa room” – as promised by the broken English chalkboard at the pay desk – was actually a small office-like chamber with a coatrack, a long table, and windows that looked across a wide boulevard. I could […]
Filed under "Bigfoot Lives"
Confessions of a Massage-aholic: Part 1
One of the things I love to do when I travel is to get a massage. Popular wisdom says that eating local food is a great way to understand a culture and its people, but for me, taking off my clothes and having foreign hands touch my skin promotes a different kind of understanding. I […]
Dream About Katrina
I was reading a two-page essay that she wrote when we were in college together. I recognized her triangulated printing, the way she shaped her phrases and posed her daggered, devastating hypothesis. I then read some notes that someone had given her on the piece, followed by my critique of those notes. I can’t remember […]
Erin Go Broke
We watched a soccer match on TV in a bar, Ireland vs. Italy. It was like both sides of my ancestry were kicking a ball around a field, diving at each others’ feet and hawking loogies. I forget who won, but either way, the whisky was fine. Whiskey is Scottish. Whisky is Irish. I can’t […]
When Writers Don’t Write
Almost always writers write, but sometime writers don’t write. Sometimes they need to stop with the output and go with the input. Some call it slacking off, some call it sleep. I call it filling the well. I’m going to Ireland to fill my well, and am leaving you this photo to fill your well. […]
All This Talk About Gratitude in the Middle of the Goddamn Night
When I wake up from a deep sleep and hear water splashing in the fountain outside my window, I am thankful for many things, among them: 1) The raccoons have not busted the fountain pump. 2) We have not been shot by stray bullets. 3) There has not been an earthquake. Sometimes I hear a […]