There is a box of malted milk balls on the table by my desk. Lynell’s candy jar is filled with leftover Halloween candy, and will be constantly half-full – like an optimist’s sweet tooth – for the rest of the season. Boxes arrive daily with summer sausage, crackers, spreads, chocolates, [...]
When I was in middle school, I went through a short period of longing for a pair of Girbaud jeans. I lusted after the jeans. Despite having no sense of fashion or design, despite having nothing that would suggest I could afford Girbauds, or that my acquisition would be anything [...]
When I used to work at the mall, we were always assured that, no matter what, great coffee could be found just down the wing at Great Plains Coffee. This was a decade ago, and though I didn’t drink coffee at the time, I still appreciated it being there - [...]
Every year we take a dead tree and place it in our living room.
It doesn’t stop there, though. We drag five large Tupperware crates upstairs, despite the fact that we’ll only use the contents of two. We rearrange furniture. We lose extension cords. We make a list for the hardware [...]
It had been snowing for hours.
I listened with rapt attention to the radio in my mother’s car. I was on my way to my father’s house; after spending most of the afternoon with my step-grandparents, I had finished with the dining portion of [...]
“Beegelbed”
This is not a word. It has never entered our minds, never left our mouth, never been created. In the history of words, it is nothing.
That is, until now.
Because, you see, it’s not enough for Sierra to learn words at a frightening pace. No. Now, she’s making up her own.
Except, [...]
It may simply look like a wooden spoon. But you’d be wrong.
It’s handle was thick; sturdy and solid, it gave control to the flimsy, tedious process of stirring. It’s wide face, cupped enough to provide necessary currents, gave life to dried rice, moving, constantly moving, the power to sift and [...]
All it took was a glance at this map.
I can’t remember how old I was – somewhere between 5 and 8 – but I do remember that my grandparents lived in Villa Hills, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati, where my grandfather was a recruiter [...]
What I’ve read:
The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to the Sports Guy - Bill Simmons
It might be a little hypocritical to slag on someone for being self-referential. As a blogger who writes primarily about his life and thoughts, most of [...]
*cough*
It isn’t so much the cough itself, though it’s persisted for 10 days, comes and goes as it pleases, creates excruciating bad breath and fills my throat with an occasional rattle.
It’s the noise.
As in, a sharp warning to all around me. “Watch out,” it says, “Sicko coming through. Take cover [...]
I love cheese. Love it.
LOVEIT.
Kerrie asked me recently to guess the three classes of consumables she appreciated the most. I kinda sorta guessed correctly: coffee, beer, bread. And, I wholeheartedly agree – my three are nearly the same, with the only difference being my choice of cheese over bread.
(Though both [...]
When we’re in high school, the differences between cliques and social classes are evident. Striking, even, in that, once they are set, there is nothing short of a miracle that could release you from one to another.
After all, barring relocation or other life-altering change, we’re in the same group as [...]
Talk about being hard to pin down. Welcome to my mind on Wikipedia.
First, I look up Neanderthals (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), primarily to make the distinction between Neanderthals and prehistoric Homo sapiens sapiens. I’m instantly distracted by the fact that, despite there have been no definite specimens younger than [...]
It’s days like this, where dinner is made over lunchtime and the dishes wait until after the kids go to bed and the things we’d like to do are pushed off as we both spend all of our free time post-bedtime getting ready for the next day, that I wonder [...]
Whether it was out of laziness, or sympathy for the creators, or apathy in terms of my inbox’s cleanliness, I’ve been allowing my email account to fill with newsletters, promotions, reminders and e-blasts for the past five years. A typical day would bring 25 messages, 18 of which were from [...]
Ever since I started my current job, I see Audis everywhere.
My bosses both drive Audis. I had never noticed them before. Now, during my short commute to work, I swear I see at least 700 Audis. Silver. Black. Sometimes white. But always Audis. The model is unnecessary – after all, [...]
Hair is something sacred. It’s often the first thing you notice about a person. It’s a central piece of style; entire industries are built upon hair in a way that other body parts barely touch upon.
The love affair with hair could be scientific. After all, it protects our head, somewhat; [...]
It starts with a tickle, sometimes observed as a scratch, often discovered through chance. Then, the cough, occurring on its own, without the baggage of an entire suite of symptoms. But those symptoms are there: the cough reaches down a little too far, brings up phlegm when it should simply [...]
I don’t remember things anymore.
I don’t remember all of the state capitals. I don’t remember advanced geometry. I don’t remember the purpose or need for the mole in chemistry class, or my old locker combination (despite a handful of frantic dreams reminding me of its importance.) I don’t remember on [...]
I hadn’t written in almost a week. I was busy. And I wasn’t inspired. And life is sooo hard, wah wah wah.
(Blah blah blah, shut up you stupid whiny writer-guy.)
So I opened my big mouth on Twitter. (And, therefore, Facebook.)
Amazingly, it took just one sentence to discover what my mental block is; why I have such a hard time writing fiction, and why so many attempts have been thrown into a folder on my computer named “Corey Writing,” a folder that would be freely overflowing if not for the [...]
What I’ve read:
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31 - Dave Eggers (editor)
“Vikings, Monks, Philosophers, Whores: Old forms, unearthed.”
The title page of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, Issue 31, promises a lot. Don’t worry. It delivers. Offering a peek into the past, and [...]
Someone over at Graphic Content - the region’s premiere art and design blog - must have me confused with an actual artist. For the second time this month, something I’ve created has made the cut: this time, some photography from D.C.
Humbling, as always.
For more photos, I implore you to [...]
There’s a green star stuck to the coaster. There are two gold stars on the floor, about three feet apart. There are worn stars scattered around the carpet; points curled, foil tarnished, backsides no longer sticky. Everywhere we turn, star stickers turn up.
The sheet upon which the stickers once lived, [...]
One of my favorite jokes is the one about how Kerry Von Erich – professional wrestling’s Texas Tornado – died in a brush fire when his wooden leg started on fire.
Oh, you’ve never heard that one?
No. Probably not. It was what we call an “inside joke.” It’s based almost exclusively [...]
Today I wrote a letter for a client.
In longhand.
I fell into a rhythm. My hand moved faster and faster. And when I was done, it looked beautiful.
The longer you spend away from longhand, the worse your handwriting gets. My scribbles used to be uniform, artistic and rounded. Now, they’re slanted, [...]
In the distance, the Lincoln High School drum line sounds like a war chant, pounding and rhythmic and – ultimately – as out of place in the morning air as a bullet or grenade. Yet, at 7 am, with the sky still dark, with two kids waiting to get moving, [...]
“KG looked like KG. In eight 1st quarter minutes he drained two 18 footers, played great defense including two steals, and had three rebounds. He would have had an ally-oop from Rondo but was fouled. His feet and hands are very active. No complaints or concerns.”
“Garnett looked strong again in [...]
“Everyone else’s memories are about building forts in the woods and sledding and going on weird adventures and having bike races. I was happiest when I was inside reading or brooding or sneaking out at night, or trying to scam my way into Washington, D.C. and drink underage in bars.
Maybe [...]
Place a bucket in the middle of the floor. No matter what, people are automatically going to look to the ceiling.
It’s simple. The bucket represents a leak. There might not even be any water present. Maybe it’s not even raining outside. It doesn’t matter. That bucket is the receiving end [...]
Today, on the way back from the South Dakota Festival of Books, Kerrie purchased some frosted animal crackers from the Al’s Oasis grocery store.
Up until this point, it had been a rough ride. Kerrie was riding shotgun with a 103-degree fever. I was still feeling the after-effects of a restless [...]
There’s a vicious circle that plagues a handful of local publications.
The circle: You start a new publication with little money and few supporters. First, you ask for free or donated content. The free or donated content is placed under the publication’s name. The publication uses this free or donated content [...]
I’m no artist, but odosketch is fun.
Go ahead. Click for live drawing.
The story: I wanted to draw a spatula. Instead, I drew a rubber scraper. So I tried to change it to a spatula for real. Then, I realized I couldn’t draw. So I drew a simple little tile.
Underneath [...]
Nothing paralyzes a room like the crash of glassware. Not yelling, not a fight. The crash – and, in this case, subsequent sheepish looks of the server in question – halts conversation completely.
We’re probably all thinking one thing: it sure must suck to be that server right now.
***
Sometimes it feels [...]
Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? By Dr. Seuss
At some point, kids memorize their favorite books.
They know exactly what happens on every page, and while they may not technically read a book cover to cover, they offer the illusion that they’re [...]
For the most part, we’re blissfully unaware of the distance between our perceived abilities and our actual skills.
Example: I have spent the last four months practicing post moves, shooting jumpers, flipping in lay-ups and juke-ing invisible defenders in an effort to get better at basketball. At times, I’d be completely [...]
It’s hard to compare two children. Especially if they’re yours. And especially if they’re born only two years apart. You’re just learning one and another comes along, and their escapades blur together as children, not as two individuals.
Despite this, one thing is for certain. Sierra never smiled [...]
Half way home, I notice a grasshopper on the hood of my car.
I’m going about 40 m.p.h., so I’m understandably surprised. He’s holding steady, bracing himself against the oncoming air, perfectly still aside from his antennae, which are curved to a 45 degree angle.
When I stop, he begins to move. [...]
September 9th, 2009 came and went with a flurry of writing and boasting of the new Beatles remasterings. I fancy myself a Beatles fan – I go through stages every few years when I listen to nothing but The Beatles. In fact, I’m in one of those stages right now, [...]
At some recent point, I realized that we’re no longer fleshing out our incomplete thoughts.
We’re leaving the ends untied. Fragments stay fragmented, banished to a the collected scraps that make up most of Twitter and Facebook, enveloped into the quickly disregarded ether of our life feed.
Which makes me wonder if [...]
By now, if you’re a basketball fan – or a sports fan in general – you’ve already read a dozen tributes to Michael Jordan. And if you’re not a basketball fan, you’ve still been unable to escape retrospectives and video packages, though you may not know [...]
A lot of people in the humanities and publishing industries spend a lot of time wringing their hands and furrowing their brows over the predicted downfall of scholarship and the decimation of reading.
So it’s nice to read something positive about the digital revolution in humanities, as Kathleen Fitzpatrick (member of [...]
What I’ve read:
The Cheese Monkeys - Chip Kidd
Until finishing The Cheese Monkeys, I hadn’t finished a book since before Isaac was born.
I mean, whoa. Right?
To be honest, I didn’t think I’d finish this one either. I wanted to hate The [...]
When it comes to adding fuel to a fire pit, there are two types of wood: lumber and logs.
Lumber stacks perfectly, is smoothed to perfection, trained and used to build something larger than itself. Its purpose is defined from the minute it is harvested, grown freely but ultimately chosen for [...]
Very few of us perform our work – or even our hobbies – in a vacuum.
I don’t write, or take pictures, or do whatever it is, simply for my own enjoyment. Though that is the main reason, I also do it because I have pride in the work I do, [...]
I don’t want to get all High School Biology Teacher on you, but This. Blows. My. Mind.
©IBM Research - Zurich | Photo from IBM Research - Zurich’s Flickr page.
It’s a pentacene molecule. 22 carbon atoms. 14 hydrogen atoms. Smaller than I can even comprehend. And, [...]
Every question is followed with a soul-piercing stare.
Deep brown eyes, round like a Fiestaware bowl, with a raisin of a black dot floating in the center. Occasionally blinking, but always staring. Right at you. Waiting for an answer. Waiting for the right words.
The stare is partnered with [...]
Despite their common appearance, there is little similar between a blueberry and a huckleberry.
A blueberry is pale, with a subdued taste. It’s common. It’s boring.
A member of the same family, the huckleberry is tart and wonderful, every bite similar to what caviar must feel like.
Blueberries are typical. Huckleberries [...]
In my business, you should never trust an idea.
Ideas are cruel. Ideas are fickle. And, if you wait long enough, an idea will break your heart.
If you fall in love with an idea – especially in the early stages of creative discourse – you are guaranteed to see it fall [...]
When we moved into our new home, we inherited – among a sea of weird design choices and awful fluorescent lighting – a genuine Rainbow playset and a slightly weathered trampoline.
Simply put, the previous owners didn’t want to move either item. In regards to the playset, I don’t blame [...]
