I know there was a lot of drastic talk on here a while ago about an Airstream and outfitting ourselves for a new chapter on the road. Our last attempts are fresh on my mind. They were good efforts but not experiences to repeat. Not Ashley and I, and not with a two month old. [...] Continue Reading »
before we jump in the camper and go
4the butternut bonkerhead lakemonster
3Sometimes the butternut bonkerhead lakemonster appears to have the disposition of a businessman. But sometimes he feels the world is big. Maybe he could sit back and wait for what happens. We tell him to give it his best shot. Mix it up and be himself. And finish what he sets out to do.
five beauty must-haves and how to be a good parent
4Take a stoll over to Modern Ink today. I’m oh so very glad to be featured in their “Polished” interview. Speaking of trends and advice: Having a baby invites a dust storm of shoulds, should nots, and robust opinions. This being my first rodeo, I’m pretty receptive but when the counsel is so often contradictory [...] Continue Reading »
writing
0I’ve unsuccessfully been trying to write all morning. I’ve gone to my old journals, picked up Steinbeck’s Working Days and even gone back to lie down. The problem is my little mind. It is not a literary mind. It’s a scattered mind and I can’t pull it together a lot of times. The next sentence needs [...] Continue Reading »
snowed in and packed down
2Saturday when I left off, we had a painting to deliver to Tazewell, VA. The other part of the plan was to look through some storage units and find things to list on Ebay and Craigslist. Ashley’s cousin is an auctioneer and we’re sitting in Bristol with a truckload of treasure. In the meantime we [...] Continue Reading »
road trip, airstream, a coal mine, and american pickers
2Good morning from Bristol, TN. We’re signing off on the blog until probably Wednesday, heading up to grandmother’s hill in Virginia to see Ashley’s people. There’s a big painting in the truck. It’s of the patriarch, Ed Addair, who always liked to coin his own phrases. “If?” “If your grandma had balls she’d be your [...] Continue Reading »
12 hours of white noise and the butternut lake monster
6There a lot of reasons to listen to static noise, so they say. Like concentration, as a filter for recording things like cymbals, and apparently helping a baby go to sleep. What is white noise exactly? Wikipedia puts it this way: “A continuous time random process w(t) where is a white noise process if and only if [...] Continue Reading »
on memoir writing
0There was once a coffee shop in downtown Madisonville where I used to live. The owner would sit down between customers, unfortunately for very long periods, and write in his journals. He was from New Orleans and spoke in a thick Cajun drawl. He told me once, “Tell me everything you know about your father.” I told [...] Continue Reading »
the day of love and friendship
2Hopefully you have remembered this, but today is the day we observe and demonstrate the proof of love. Romantic love. In other lands, today is the day of love and friendship. But here, we adore that special someone. And if there is no special someone at the moment, you can buy the chocolate on the [...] Continue Reading »
best google search engine terms that found us
4And now it’s time for more guilty Google searches. Of course we can’t see who they are, but we know what they were looking for. Here are the chosen (for this Quarter): why isn’t my daughter a hipster? fellini kroger (39 times) settlers of catan hipsters (3 times, spelled cantan 2 more times) kick em [...] Continue Reading »