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Battery Power Low! Otherwise Known As God’s Little Voice Box

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I don’t want to freak you out or anything but God has been speaking to me through my fire detector.

It’s true.

Some people have vivid, colorful dreams of weathered hermits riding royal purple Yaks and wake up feeling inspired and motivated around their life purpose. Others make an omelet and see the face of Jesus in the burnt, crusty bits of Gouda and head out on a pilgrimage. Moses had the burning bush.

But, nope. Not me. I have a Kidde fire alarm. Read more

My Life as a Colonoscopy

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“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” ~ E.L. Doctorow

So, yeah, Doctorow was talking about writing and, while I’ve certainly felt that way in penning my own novel, right now these words are encompassing my whole life. They’ve niggled into every corner of my existence and, while I know, “you can make the whole trip” with not but a set of headlights, it’d sure be nice if I weren’t driving a rusted 1971 Pinto, exhaust dragging the pavement, and a Gulf size oil leak.  Don’t even get me started about the headlights themselves.  The bulbs are cracked and covered with a layer of deep red clay dust. I think one is definitely on the fritz because it’s blinking like a firefly’s ass on a sultry summer eve. Read more

An Ice Cream Carol

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“Wake up and piss, the world’s on fire,” my step-dad used to yell up to me every morning through the railing of my bedroom loft. I would simply roll over and wonder what my mother saw in this vile man whom, with bitter irony, would get so plastered drinking Milwaukee’s Best that he’d forget where the bathroom was and piss next to the coal burning stove. Had I had more balls at age fourteen I would have hollered back to him that he had already put out the fire the night before. Alas I did not. It seems for my whole life the universe has been coming up with new and sardonic ways of getting my ass out of bed.

To put it mildly, I’ve never been a morning person.

After my step-father had urinated his last in our home, the task of waking me was once again set upon my mom’s shoulders. She’d shout at me to get up. And I – thinking myself rather crafty – would shout back, “I’m awake!” Then I’d quickly go back to sleep for fifteen more minutes. Read more