my office on Sunday
I love race day.
I like running, but I love race day. There’s nothing like the excitement of the starting corrals, that rush on the course as you realize that all the training is paying off, and the celebration and release ...
but when I became a man, I put away childish things
It was his fidget. Even though he quit playing baseball years ago, he still kept a ball in his room, and when he got stressed out, or even just bored, he’d lie on his back on his bed, and rep...
not the same deer
Out for a short run this morning—they’re all short now, and slow, as I struggle to clear the remaining damage from my lungs—I was coming up Forest. As I crossed the old CSX line near Augusta, I looked to my left a...
Tunnel of Love (Туне́ль Коха́ння) in Klevan, Ukraine
I have a question. And I really do pose this as a question to which I seek an answer, not as some gotcha rhetorical trick:
Can Russia just do whatever they want to whomever they want in their neig...
I was at my dad’s condo a couple of weeks ago, going through his files for some important papers, when I came across this gem: a promissory note for a PLUS loan my mother and I cosigned in February of 1989. That would have been the start of wi...
I don’t really make new year’s resolutions. Not anymore. Most years, they ended up slipping completely out of mind, only to creep back during those quiet overnight staring-at-the-ceiling sessions. “Oh, yeah, there’s a whole &...
The past year resists any attempt to weave a narrative or theme around it. There were some major ups and downs, which sets it apart from 2020, a year that had no ups. But I can’t say if it was better or worse. Different and less linear, for sur...
I mean, they’re all dark, kind of by definition.
For most of my adult life, especially since I understood the profound effects of seasonal affective disorder on me, the winter solstice has always been one of the biggest milestones of the year....
Eleven and a half years ago, when we moved into this house, we put together an ordered list of the various projects we’d be undertaking to make the place our own. It was a lengthy list, and right near the top was the living room.
This magnific...
For some of these kids, it's the last competitive game they're ever going to play. I’ve been toying with the idea of becoming certified (“patched,” in the vernacular) to umpire IHSA baseball games on and off for a few years.
When D...
