Nov 17, 2009 Posted by john

The Really Good Idea

I used to work in Portland at the Watershed Management Division of Oregon DEQ. It was probably the best job I’ve ever had– mostly because the people who choose to work at DEQ are, for the most part, amazing. They are the type of people who you can easily work next to for 20 years and at the end of it thing “Wow, where’d all that time go?” Despite that, I was having a hard... read more

Nov 15, 2009 Posted by john

A Picture Of My Mother’s Death, In Words

Long-time readers will know that I’m a fan of Wordle, the web site that let’s you make word clouds of strings of text. I have a lot of them1 because they present words outside the context of narrative, which is both disjointed and jarring, while at the same time being fascinating and beautiful. I decided to make a couple based on the writings I did during my Grief series to see how they would... read more

Nov 13, 2009 Posted by john

Not Really A Phœnix

A couple days ago, my personal server went through a Positively Glorious catastrophe. I was working on the back-end adding a couple more blogs and a mailing list/wiki combination for a friend. When I went back over to my personal website, I didn’t see my blog, but rather aplaceholder page for Bluehost, my shared hosting provider. My immediate thought was: “Oh shit, what the hell... read more

Nov 10, 2009 Posted by john

On Words & Meaning

How much meaning do we place into what another person says and does? I don’t really know, but I’m starting to think that the answer is something like “damn near all of it.” A comment from my thoughtful friend Suzanne got me thinking about how much meaning I attribute to what others, especially my loved ones, say– meanings that are often not there. It’s a problem we all... read more

Nov 9, 2009 Posted by john

The Wave

I’m not sure where we got the idea. I think it’s probably from my Oregon family, because I know my cousins Jackie and Claudia do it, as did their parents. Anyway, wherever we got the idea, it’s become a standard operating procedure for us. Everytime one of us leaves the house, we wave. At first, I thought it was an “Oregon” thing, because my Oregon family all do it. But... read more