Stories

First, set the scene: waterside. Next, choose a random hobby – coin collecting, or stained glass windows, or composing music.  This hobby will help create a narrative arc that will act as a metaphor for deeper emotional storylines. Now, take an unlikely couple.  At first, they don’t like each other, because they’re just too different. …

When I was a senior in college, I stopped every morning on the way to class at a coffee shop called the Java Bean.  Every day, I ordered the same thing: a 16 oz. cup of coffee with room.  That’s all, nice and simple.  The baristas recognized me, and I always had exact change for…

“It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back…

What a place, huh? Last night, I zig-zagged the downtown streets on foot, taking in the sights and sounds of Stumptown.  Seattle may be my first love – but I have a warm, fuzzy fondness for her hippie kid sister. Eventually, I wandered into Powell’s Books (how could I not?), and spent way, way too…

My friend Fred Wilhelm writes great songs.  I talked to him a few months back, and told him that some of my happiest moments of the past year were the times that I heard him play this one: I mean, seriously?  That is just the coolest.  I hope this isn’t sacrilegious, but when I hear…

Dear Lost, In the 36 hours since Sunday night, the internets have been abuzz with talk of you.  Did you end the right way?  Were people’s minds sufficiently blown?  How accurate were our theories?  Was the conclusion good enough? Mainly: are we satisfied? Lost, you were my favorite show I’ve ever watched, and gave me…

You can take the girl out of Nashville, but you can’t take the stage-side-at-the-Taylor-Swift-show-and-THIS-IS-SO-AWESOME out of the girl. Jenn and I had tickets for the uppermost balcony last night, literally behind the stage.  But my most excellent friend Kelli (SHOUT OUT) back in Nashville pulled some strings, and all of a sudden, a man was…

Kathryn Bigelow is 58-years old?  I seriously thought she was 32.  What a beautiful woman. Watching the Oscars makes me want to be in show business.  I just want to tell stories for the rest of my life. I guess that this blog will have to do.

When this life, this world, this Whole Thing is all over, and we have the chance to look back on the story that was our life, I honestly believe that we won’t experience it as a narrative, but that we will hear it as a song – the most beautiful, sad, triumphant song ever written,…

Before I begin, let’s all just take a minute to acknowledge the huge thing that happened yesterday.  The thing that made the world feel small – like everyone, no matter what culture, tribe, or tongue, agreed was a big event.  An incident that shook us out of our day-to-day reality, and made us think about…