Tag: memoir
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One Page Turned Into a Week of Saying ‘I Like You’
1980s. New kid. A girlfriend with a binder full of hearts, a Mormon friend, a Coke machine full of Pepsi, and one simple request: write me a real note. I should have known better than to start.
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First Date
“I don’t appreciate what you said about my friends today.” I had no idea what she meant. That would turn into my first date. Read how it all happened.
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Is Resilience Worse Than the Waiting?
The aid station behind you is too far to go back. The next one is miles ahead. That’s not just ultrarunning — it’s the writing life. A new essay on resilience, silence, and why you need to keep going.
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With Me When It’s Scariest
I was five the first time I dialed a phone. A yellow rotary on the wall. My grandmother’s number. My dad behind me on the barstool. I’ve been dialing scary numbers ever since.
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The Saturday I Let Go
Five hundred posts, nine queries, one tired writer. A Saturday morning, a cup of coffee, and the wife who reminded me what the work actually is.
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Embers
I smacked Ray’s arm out of the way, waiting for him to swing back. He didn’t. His older brother held me back. Fifty minutes later I was kneeling in front of the wood stove, still burning. And the fire wasn’t mine.
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His Older Brother
A California kid lands in rural Idaho. Snow, gravel roads, and a school bus full of kids he doesn’t know. One of them is Ray. Big. Farm bred. And looking for a fight. This is about one person who stepped between them, and why, more than thirty years later, he still can’t remember his name.
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The Year We Made Our Own Rules
George Orwell wrote about 1984. I lived through it. They weren’t the same thing. Junior high was worse.
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Why You Are a Story Worth Telling
A quiet moment at Flaming Geyser State Park. A question to my dad. A camera around his neck. I didn’t know then how much that day would teach me about storytelling and why our ordinary lives might hold the most extraordinary stories of all. What if the one you’ve been carrying is the one someone…
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Introduction to Duran Duran, aka Brent Alexand’s Vega
Storytelling takes account of the shoddy memories of the teller. My memories and the gaping holes in them make the tale more interesting, sometimes taking it off the rails into the depths of what can only be considered borderline lying. Those details often make it palatable, so I hope my recollection will be relatively accurate…