squish
My elegant universe
Sometimes you don't plan a thing for your weekend, and the weekend just rises up to meet you, and everything is just...wonderful. My weekend was like that. No big, spectacular plans. Just a succession of small, pleasant moments. Any one of them would have been the highlight of the
Shake me up
A couple of weeks ago I had oral surgery. I was pretty concerned about this event; there was some risk my sinus might explode during the surgery. It didn't! But there was a bone graft involved, and some mention of the boundary between my mouth and sinus being paper-thin, so
Xes in boxes
Sometime back in February, maybe March, Squish observed that it was lighter in the mornings than it had been in awhile. Her point was clear: We can go for morning walks again, Daddy. We'd gone for walks all throughout the summer and fall of 2022, venturing out by 7am, but
When you're up, you celebrate
Publishing can be a fickle business, someone once told me, so you have to make sure you celebrate every little positive thing that happens. Embrace the highs, because there are a lot of lows. On Tuesday, The Edge of Sleep was released. Publication day is always a high, so we
Ideal reader
Yesterday Squish asked to read The Dark Age. She didn't mean the short story; she has read that a couple of times, including once yesterday. She knows the backstory, that I wrote the piece during a time in my life when I felt I was missing out on hers. "When
Happy leaves a mark
Recently my wife looked closely at my face and said, "I like your smile lines." I'm forty-four. By all research findings I've seen lately, I'm probably more than halfway through my life. (Maybe not, but we never really know, you know?) When Felicia said that to me, I replied, "Thank
Happy looks good on me
Or so said Felicia when I sent her this little selfie from a recent walk. Despite a few speedbumps, the last few months have been really positive ones. I have been good to my body. I have eaten better than ever in my life. I have listened to new music,
The pleasure of her company
I wake Squish while it's still dark. She gets ready as the first light breaks over the horizon. By the time she's bundled up for the morning chill and ready to go, it's just light enough to see our way to the Jeep. At our usual trail, the sun's just
A van under the stars
In recent weeks, Squish has taken a strong interest in astronomy. It's a big part of her school curriculum, but not until the second half of the year. We've encouraged her not to restrict her learning to whatever's on the docket, but to chase down anything she's interested in. As
Squish at the (home) movies
Recently, for family movie night, the fam selected Dune. None of us had seen it. I did some quick research: Appropriate for a ten-year-old? I mean, she's seen Lord of the Rings, and Jaws, and other such things. I learned that there was one brutal-ish death in the movie, and