The Dredge Cycle

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By the power of Greyskull, here’s the update. At least, the first of the updates I thought would hap­pen. This trip’s been a litany of better-​​than-​​no-​​time-​​at-​​all con­ver­sa­tions and dri­ving, brain­mush and dri­ving, unsea­son­able weather and driving.

Fare well, old friend

I knew this day was com­ing. I’ve known it would come for years now. But, con­trary to the last ten months’ wait­ing for a few moments, I haven’t thought much about today. I’ve been cry­ing a lot about leav­ing, which I think alone rep­re­sents some huge per­sonal growth. I’ve also been cry­ing about my son, my ex, my cur­rent rela­tion­ship that’s now end­ing, and the enor­mity of what’s not in my hands as I return. In Burque I have love, sec­ond fam­ily, chile, pseudo-​​​​jobs and my…

Something We Can Get Behind

My friend Jamie’s a remark­able clas­si­cal gui­tarist. He’s in two-​​man band, in fact, called Duo Orfeo. Not a self-​​professed lover of clas­si­cal, I lis­ten to their first album all the time. And they’re try­ing to do some­thing that may never have been done before, if you can look past that Ralph Macchio/​Ry Cooder thing in the 80s.

This Strange Collapse

Tell you about lately: a strange blend of depres­sion, after­shocks from The Self­ish Gene, and a deep­en­ing cer­tainty that though my son and I made it out of this crazy débâ­cle in the best out­come for the cir­cum­stances, there are an end­less num­ber of us who didn’t.

To Clarify

About ten months ago, my girl­friend at the time and I very unex­pect­edly became a preg­nant cou­ple. We broke up in March. This week, my son was born. His name is James Andrew, and nat­u­rally, he’s gor­geous. He’s healthy, smiles and wrin­kles his brow much, and came to us at a stag­ger­ing 8 lbs, 15 oz.

So, ah, it's my birthday

Developments

In which my design/​writing port­fo­lio goes live, my strange fea­ture in Man­ches­ter leaves me burned out on poetry, my research has gone off the rails – and two very sig­nif­i­cant forces are poised to haul it back on track.

Travel Week

This week I spend in Cal­i­for­nia, read­ing Daniel Quinn’s Beyond Civ­i­liza­tion. Back at you live next week.

Crafty Thoughts on True Blood

Stay­ing in your father’s house is hard on a grown man. It’s fun to adven­ture your way through – say hi, catch up, eat a few meals, and be on your way – but as a six-​​month sojourn, it’s a threat to my iden­tity. I’m los­ing my days to campy, vampy, mediocre TV.

10 Lessons from my 10-Year High School Reunion

I won’t lie. I looked for­ward to this thing for, like, five years. But I wasn’t expect­ing to be trans­formed. It won’t sur­prise you high school reunions now seem to me another expres­sion of a bro­ken social sys­tem. But man, the going. It was a bap­tism. Of what, well. I might have to get back to you in ten.