Category Archives: Uncategorized

The Ones Who Stay

Recent events have reminded me of Ursula K. Le Guin’s much-anthologized story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” in which a utopian society depends for its continued existence on the suffering of one child. Some, when they learn of … Continue reading

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A New Year

At midnight on December 31st, Arline and I followed her cousins out of the house where we’d been eating tamales and into the empty residential street to watch fireworks bloom over the neighborhood. We toasted. We hugged and wished each … Continue reading

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The Nonfictional Dream

  On the morning of May 18, 1980, volcanologist David Johnston radioed his colleagues at the Vancouver branch of the United States Geological Survey. Mount Saint Helens was erupting. “Vancouver, Vancouver!” he said. “This is it!” And a river of … Continue reading

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Frogs

On a recent camping trip, I wedged the legs of my canvas chair into the rocks along the Cowlitz River and paddled my toes in the cold water. It was 95 degrees in the campground just outside Mount Rainier National … Continue reading

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This.

Five years ago I started writing this blog to exercise my essay writing muscles. I wanted to experiment with voice and tone, with different topics. To think about my imagined audience. Why was I writing and about what and to … Continue reading

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New Publication: “Signals”

I’m honored to be part of this online anthology: Older Queer Voices: The Intimacy of Survival. Editors Sarah Einstein and Sandra Lambert set out to push back “against the bigotry of all kinds that has reentered the public conversation, unrestrained.” … Continue reading

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Dignity and Dust

In the park near our apartment, we often come across sculptures of carefully balanced rocks. Sometimes they are small and simple, a few rocks tall. Sometimes they are as tall as I am, boulders standing on end. One day recently … Continue reading

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“Showing Up” Published in Federal Way Mirror

My college hosts a column in a local newspaper, the Federal Way Mirror, and I was asked to contribute. Of course, I was thinking about the recent election. It seemed a good time to think about how our perceptions of … Continue reading

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Love My City

Last night Seattle residents celebrated, remembered, and waxed poetic over the places we once loved that are now long gone. For me, it was Pizza and Pipes, a restaurant at 85th and Greenwood where organists rocked a huge Wurlitzer organ. … Continue reading

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New Publication: “Different Love”

Thanks to Mary-Kim Arnold at The Rumpus for publishing this essay, “Different Love,” on queer identity. I wrote it in a fever the summer I turned 50 and married Arline.

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