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Cycle Perspective
My bike was everything.
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Bonsai Drama
Bonsai are subtle. They’re peaceful. They’re quiet.
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Dirty Tricks
Shame on you.
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Package Thieves
When I arrived in Seattle 3 ½ years ago, I was shocked to discover that you could pretty much count on your packages getting stolen off your doorstep out here. That never, ever happened to me in Florida. I had no idea what a fool’s paradise I had been living in. Based on conversations with…
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Death by a Thousand Cuts
I absolutely hate being told that I’m overreacting. Unless you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, you don’t even know what I’m reacting to, Buddy-Roo. You have no freakin’ idea. That’s why it’s so annoying to hear men downplay the whole #MeToo movement. “It was JUST a little slip of the hand. You can’t even…
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Root Causes
Scene: Shoppers witness a security guard wrestling a man to the ground for attempting to steal some lunch meat. They are glad that this criminal got caught. Serves him right. Justice prevails. One lone voice offers to buy the lunch meat for the man, and is the subject of ridicule. Meanwhile, no one has asked…
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Music Sampling
I have a long-standing debate with a friend of mine about music sampling. He contends that it’s nothing but theft, and that it shows no artistic ability whatsoever. I, on the other hand, think that in this modern age, a snippet of digital code can be a musical instrument every bit as much as a…
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Sleazy Little Punk
At a time when I can ill afford it, I’m going to have to go buy a locked mailbox. The other day I opened mine to find a bunch of bills I had left for the postman had been ripped open, wadded up, and thrown back in the box. Nice. And then I started calling…
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Could we give Black Men a Break, Please?
One of my coworkers had to drive to work the other day with a shattered passenger side window, courtesy of his son and a baseball. Kids will be kids. He had only been at work on the bridge for a few hours when he got a phone call from the police, asking him to come…
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Chaos: The New Normal?
A coworker of mine was describing a situation in which he and his brother were watching TV and they got into an argument which then escalated into a fist fight, and the police had to be called. Just a regular Tuesday night at Chez Coworker, apparently. I remember thinking, “Huh. My whole life, the police…