Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac: a book that I’ve been not reading for years.

This is a fun category not to be confused with books I will never read or books that I should try to find someday or books that I might read. This is one of those books that has been recommended […]

Just read Lisa Feldman’s opinion piece “The Benefits of Despair” in the Gray Matter series in The New York Times. 

She describes the psychological term “emotional granularity” as something that people with finely tuned feelings have. Those who feel “creeping horror or fury, rather than just general awfulness.” She writes, “Emotional granularity isn’t just about […]

My first thought was to title this post:

RETROSPECTIVELY REALIZING THAT PRAYERS YOU NEVER REMEMBER EXPLICITLY ASKING HAVE BEEN ANSWERED

Instead, let’s say that I appreciate the lists. Every year around my birthday I am tempted to feel bad about all that I haven’t done, all that I am not, all the things that haven’t […]

I first read this novel by Mark Haddon on the island of Saipan. I didn’t read it in one sitting. I think it was in three. Maybe four. It was in one day. The voice captured me, the situationally specific details made me nostalgic and curious for elsewheres, and the detailed descriptions of disparate thought […]

I love Walter Mitty. I love the 1939 short story by James Thurber. I love the Ben Stiller movie. I love that the name Walter Mitty like Judas or Juliet or Romeo or Hamlet or Nemo or Benjamin Button was created in a story and then became part of our language, signifying something specific. I […]

In a scene in the movie About Schmidt the character played by Jack Nicholson is staring at his clock in his office. He is waiting for it to hit 5. His bags are packed. When he walks out of the door, he has reached retirement. This mini-drama is played out numerous times a day at […]

Today is Oregon’s Primary Election. In Oregon, we vote by mail, and we recently passed the Motor Voter Law which makes voting in Oregon an opt-out system. In Oregon, you are automatically registered to vote if you are eligible AND they send you a ballot in the mail. You don’t have to register. You don’t […]

I like interviews. They are a combination of conversation, questions, answers, listening, and often monotasking. These are all great things. I love the variety of interviews, and I love the purposeful seriousness that even comic interviews take.

Let’s pause to consider the variety of things that fall under the category of INTERVIEW. There are oral history […]