Mid-May my laptop’s A/C adapter expires and I can’t seem to replace it locally for under $150 say what? yeah, and I get sick of looking—the Mom and Pop shrugging and the superslick Big Box Boys shoving into my hands product I can’t afford then blocking the rack so I can’t put it back while…
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i bought a mango
Short termed or not or what, I moved here. It’s time to live here.
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building a desert
I have to remind myself to remember, take pictures. Slow down.
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new happy year
When I first moved to Vancouver, I had a three-month sublet, a bedroom filled with meanings not my own. Everything is temporary, knew that already, eating off a stranger’s plates and sleeping in a stranger’s bed. I looked forward to a different living situation to have a space of my own, with my own things,…
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fight this
Trekking all over Seattle finds me a tofu corn dog and Chipotle I couldn’t pass up, poetry on the streets sold on scraps and rapped from corners.
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snow day
It’s been raining every day for a month. Saturday afternoon, it started to snow. I forgot the cold, forgave the cloaks on still green leaves, the waxy tropic ovals without a Midwest chance. The home-from-campus bus that normally drags out sighs, claws patience, twists my spine into a hateful slump waste of time delivers a…
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i am the trespassenger and i ride and i ride, and yes, roll the window down this cool night air is curious.
I’ve been here a month and some. It seems about that long. So. Have I made loads of awesome new friends? Not really. Have I found the sickest clubs with the phattest beats? No. Did I dance in a park with a bunch of hippies, step over hypodermics, dodge the homeless, fight the post office,…
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what will i done
My train leaves in 6 hours. I know people who know people who have taken the same train just to take it—the journey the destination across the plains and through the mountains it’s so gorgeous, just you wait westward bound on the shamelessly named Empire Builder. When my dad was a little boy, he took…
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righting now
Working at the library, I have an hour lunch break I take late afternoon, often outside when the weather suits fine. I sit in the grass and eat and read and have taken to the squirrels and taken flak for it. Mangy, vicious beasts! Vile creatures, too quick and crawly wily! I break off pieces…
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we are what america looks like
On April 28, 2006, I took a half shift at work to join my brother Sam on the steps of Northrop at the U of M campus for a metrowide student walkout war protest. The last antiwar march I went to, the United States wasn’t even at war yet. This was over three years ago,…
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figure C
Humor for a moment my crush on the Buddha—or should I say what can I say? I enjoy thinking about not thinking and living the life I’m not killing. In my flirtation I have run across the following dialogue between the layman Ho and the Chinese Zen master Baso. With this exchange, Ho became deeply…
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brrrrrrrrrrawr
Pedestrians run. The enemy is all around. I stare at the ground through the slit between my scarf and hat; an inch eye elevated to see where I’m going would widen a crevice and I’d be caught at the throat down the coat cold eviscerated. I could be hit by a truck and not notice,…
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will, way, check.
If you’re reading this, I’m a genius, or dogged enough to figure out how to make it happen—ftp from the university in secrecy as though anyone would care, really, though surreptitious down- and uploading is undoubtedly frowned upon. I’ve been working at a library at the U of M since the beginning of September to…
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feeling all right
Greatings! No cataclysms are occurring but good things nonetheless. First of all and most marvelously, I have a library internship at Utne magazine starting at the end of the month through the end of August. For those unaware, Utne is compiled from thousands of alternative and small-press publications, zines, books and internet sites, serving up…
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midwest über alles
So when I wrote that the new, improved deepsicks was a farewell burial for the Death of the Internet, I wasn’t kidding. Thus… long lag. Not that I haven’t been making treks cross and back the world wide web. I’ve just been making strides in Real Life, too, and that feels pretty good. If falling…
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Identity
Over the past several months I’ve lost the thread of how to define myself—whether describing identity in terms of what’s urgent and the sum of circumstance, location and relationship is meaningful, honest or accurate. I don’t deny being a product of my experiences (as though they had me and not the reverse). But I don’t…
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rapture at last
With exception of a site map which may or may not ever get made, the deepsicks overhaul is complete. As stated in prior posts, much of the content is the same, only arranged differently with a so-I-hope sharper feel. Pages with significantly altered content include the identity section, updated to reflect my current musings, and…
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sungod prayers
Days have been long—the nights, rather, excruciatingly lightless, while time drops like a depth charge out of my control. I’d’ve been all over this forever night nonsense were I, say, fourteen and goth. Unfortunately (?) I’m adult and postmodern (postpunk, postrave, postyouth, postal) and prime to succumb to seasonal affective disorder. Thank god (ahem—a mangered…
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achieving objections
Given the past several deepsicks updates and subsequent discussions, the past several months of my real-life tuning in, fully intellectually engaged and emotionally invested ’cause I care so much and want so much positive things for the nation and world, I suppose a few words are in order. Enough time has passed to suggest thought-out,…
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fundrazing
Coming home from work Wednesday, pulling off downhill parallel parking with ease, some ten-year-olds on cool bikes accost me as I get out of my car. “Do you want to buy a C-Book so we can buy a new teacher?” “A new teacher?!” “Yeah, and we don’t have any gym stuff, either.” “Huh. What’s a…
Narratives
Longer posts of creative nonfiction.
