Feb 26, 2010 Posted by john

I’m the guy your mother warned you about

So I’m walking down the street last night. It’s dark, and I’m walking fast because I’m meeting my fair Jessica at a restaurant and want to be there before her, because I don’t mind waiting for her, but I know she doesn’t like waiting for me. So, I’m walking faster than usual. It was a beautiful night, actually. Pretty warm. I had my favorite brown leather... read more

Jan 31, 2010 Posted by john

Take a Number… Wait, nevermind, you are a number

I’ve never really had a problem with waiting. I know that many people hate to wait for things– appointments, people, Christmas, whatever. That’s the reason that, as much as I can, I try to be early when I meet with people. I’m afraid that people don’t want to wait for me. At the same time, I sometimes wish people would show up late for meetings with me– even an hour... read more

Jan 31, 2010 Posted by john

Background Noise

When I was 25, it was a very good year. There were, beautiful girls wearing… nurses uniforms and… telling me to wake up… “Wake up. Wake up, John.” Groggy, I opened my eyes to a white and pink room that smelled of a combination of death and the avoidance of death. A few days later, I left the hospital to 30 days convalescence leave and barely another year as a member of the “US... read more

Jan 30, 2010 Posted by john

Barrett’s Esophagus

… check. Throttle ignition lock? Check. And we’re descending into Despair in 4… 3… 2… This is one of those things that sucks to write about, not because it’s hard to write but because the very act of writing it– while it helps me to formulate my thoughts and feelings– proves that it’s true. And I really really wish that none of this was true. There’s an onion... 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