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Dear P,

I am probably going to go to hell for saying this, but I am going to say it anyway. I think that if the number of people in your immediate family crosses into the double-digit territory, then you can kick people out of the tree. It is okay (and possibly quite necessary) to take a chainsaw and yell, "BUH-bye, branch!"

If the number of people in your family, including your parents, is less than seven, you SHUSH now.

If the number of people in your family, including OR (especially) not i… Continue

M: who would you miss talking to?
X: the voices in my head.

from "Bus Stop" by jmg:

I sat against the wall and chain-smoked cigarettes while waiting for Buzz to show up. I had a whole mess of half-smoked cigarettes lying next to me on the sidewalk. I picked them up one by one and threw them into the gutter. I was bored.

I stared at the cracks in the sidewalk and at the dried up patches of gum. Disgusting, I thought. I got up and went over to the bus bench. I stood on top of the… Continue

Three things that stuck:

1. boys and girls, if there's one word you're ever going to learn, that word is "propaganda." (holy crap! not bad for a freshman world history teacher/physical education coach on the first day of class. how right you were, mr. wolfe, how right you were.)

2. quality not quantity. (thank you, english major weed out class. i still have the scars.)

3. from a real conversation with my dad,

d: always hang around people who are smarter than you.
x: um, okay, but ...… Continue

Dear P,

I'm a hundred miles from home, sitting here with spit-up on all the clothes that I brought up with me, and one pair of crazy looking eyebrows because I forgot to pack my tweezers. I also have only one pair of shoes for this trip, flip-flops, which were really fun to wear in the rain and hail.

I thought I found myself a new brain in the form of a MacBook, but right now this is pretty much all I do with it: wipe off fingerprints.

When I'm not doing that, I can be found cooing at it, "I… Continue

Dear P,

It's going to be one of those letters.

So sit down, grab some tissue and the (I'm going to need to borrow it) blankie from when you were a baby because the X would like to talk to you now about, yes, the thorn in my side, the knife in my heart, the spear through my head that is one Mikel Jollett. Do you know him? You should, seeing how his band, The Airborne Toxic Event, has been newly signed to Majordomo Records (with wide distribution through SonyBMG -- HELP! I'm possessed). He's the… Continue