On the fifth day of Christmas I’d hoped I might see a pile of brand new poetry.

I hold this tradition, perhaps now festered into an obsession, that I spend Christmas Eve afternoon into Christmas Day dawn writing poems, creating what I’ve grown to call my annual Christmas Cycle. This year was no different. I began by collecting a few seasonal images that might prove inspiring and, as usual, by fussing a lot. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Writing, Christmas, Living, Manifesting

On the fourth day of Christmas my nephew’s boyz brought me one first class, life-affirming conspiracy.

I prefer the company of kids. Not because kids are so sweet. Perhaps because they are just as capable of meanness as kindness. They are, to an individual, every one of them, a pirate until acculturated. After that, they’re a bit worse. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Writing, Living, Manifesting, Working

My daily newspaper The Washington Post, like every newspaper with an online presence, offers the opportunity for every reader to comment on every published article. Facebook, Twitter, /*you_name_it*/ also offer comment spaces. My friend Mark holds the opinion that the comments often say a lot more than the article they comment upon. Me? I can barely bare to read them.

They seem to offer the same sort of experience as one finds observing the typical autopsy, what might have once been human, laid bare and violated. No, my nose isn’t disjointed because somebody’s comment peed on my birthday cake. Yes, my sense of propriety feels offended. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Writing, Living, Manifesting

On the ThirdDay of Christmas, I took my nephew’s boyz to the park, mostly to get outside in the spitting snowstorm in hope of catching some Christmas spirit. Georgie said he wanted to stop for Gelato on the way to the park, but I suggested it always tastes better when your patootie’s half-frozen off.

The boyz were a few years too old for the gym equipment, which they quickly started stressing to what seemed near their limit. I finally called a halt to the destruction, and Ronnie turned into a defensive attorney, questioning my judgment in the matter. I could see the spring threatening to pull loose from the concrete base and the wild gyrations which simple momentum might have propelled Ronnie and that kiddie butterfly ride into the face of another kid. I couldn’t quite encourage Ronnie to listen, him being so busy ignoring my perspective and all, so I left. Up and walked away, not looking back. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Christmas, Writing, Manifesting, Living

I am not what anyone would call mechanical. Well, not in any traditional sense. It took me about five years to figure out how to change the oil in a car, and even then, not entirely reliably. I can often select the right key to fit the backdoor lock, but only because I’ve color-coded the keys. I feel as though I’ve almost mastered the flathead screwdriver and am doing some kindergarten-level practice bouts with the mysterious Phillips head model. I prefer Vise-Grip^® pliers, even though they sometimes maul the nut head.

Last weekend the master bathroom towel rack fell into the tub all by itself. It had taken up this annoying habit ever since the property manager ‘managed’ to yank it off the wall while he was mangling the blistered ceiling joint just above it. I gamely put it back up, but it seemed to have lost its will to hang, and has clattered like Fibber Magee’s closet opening into that huge soaking tub at inconvenient intervals since. I’d had it. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Working, Writing, Living

I heard today some shocking stories of mean-ing personified and I cried. I watched several promising possibilities disappearing, leaving no equally promising replacements. I grieve for what might have been and most certainly will never be now. I do not know yet what comes next and I’m uncertain where you’re left. I watched you being bereft and felt my own history stabbing me near that scar in my back. I have nothing wise to share.

I hope I never see it coming. I would rather be betrayed a thousand times than maintain a single cynical callus that might deflect any mean defection. Looking over my shoulder trying to catch a glimpse of someone trying to catch me inhibits my progress. I’d much rather lose any race than live so defensively. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Working, Writing, Living

The Christian liturgical calendar classifies most of the year as ordinary time. Between Christmas and Easter, then again between Easter and Advent, many lesser holidays fall, but none qualify as extraordinary. The Greeks distinguished between festal and ferial times, formal feasting days and times when supper involves ferreting around in the back of the fridge to find whatever’s threatening to go bad. For both Christians and Ancient Greeks, most of their year featured ferreting around.

Perhaps we should celebrate ferreting. Not with parades and fireworks, but with whatever’s at hand. Could we celebrate the daily routine and thereby elevate mere existence into the realm of, if not pomp, at least some decent circumstance? I believe I could and I think I should. Slip over here for more ...

Tags: Writing, Living, Working