We’ve traveled a lot, which means we’ve also packed a lot. And for lots of different reasons and seasons. There was the Christmas holiday in Belgium, from here on out known simply as cold af.

There is a street and on it the traffic is intense. Cars, Vespas, three-wheeled Apes zipping along, people passing on foot. Oblivious…

Finding life in the remote, intimate airways of your mind. — I have few hard and fast memories from when I was a young boy growing up in Fort Wayne, Indiana that weren’t seeped into memory from photographs. Pedaling my banana seat bike down the flat-ass dead end street on which we lived. Watching Christmas shows from a tiny gap in…

“An important part of the science essential to understanding the reasons that some people appear to flourish as they age, while others fade”. — How old are you in your head? Quickly, without giving it much thought-there is no right answer here, after all (well maybe there is, but keep reading). I’m not asking how old you feel. But how old are you? In your thoughts. Go ahead, take a few seconds. Okay, all…

I know I spend a lot of time on this newsletter (and in person) calling attention to the many screwed up schemes the principal architects of policy, those shapers of society, these Masters of Mankind, use to conspire, engineer and bully us into believing and accepting the crappy way in…

and a funeral — “You just set him up there? Like luggage?” The attendant working the counter stopped what she was doing and scowled at me. She didn’t appreciate having to repeat herself. There was a long line. People were waiting. I looked down at the large animal carrier, then over at the luggage…

The real problem with fine dining — Last week the New York Times ran an op ed titled Foodie Fever Dreams Can’t Keep Restaurants Afloat written by Vivian Howard, the chef and restaurateur behind Chef & the Farmer (amongst others) in Kinston, NC. Howard’s piece follows a bit of apparently “shocking” news regarding the impending closure of…

But Why Give it Away for Free? My subject for the Writer’s Room this week is fitting. Just last Tuesday, The Guardian printed a story highlighting the steady decline of writers’ earnings in the UK. …

How writing about chronic illness made me stronger Two days before Christmas 2009, my family and I were enjoying what passes for the usual holiday fare in our home: a little shopping, spending a lot of time together, playing host to friends, when in a moment that no one saw coming, the youngest of us, our eight year…