Saint Nesanet, Patron of Gratitude Every day, several times a day, I look upon the small porcelain figurine: me, sitting, leaning forward, a teensy book spread open on the altar of my tiny, supplicating hands. I am reading to her class, my son’s class, my class — high school English. Mixing business and pleasure, reading…

By the time I’m done sliding through loose dirt, detritus, and gravel (like the shale mountain scree in “Dharma Bums”), I’ve rappelled from boulder to branch of shifting cliffside, my guitar and beer bag bouncing along for the ride. At the bottom is the moist cool sand arcing in granular waves of stones, pebbles, and…

Seeking distraction, I decide to tell the Buckaroo all I know about distraction, which amounts mostly to the mildly annoying sounds of civilization — aircraft, automobiles, and arboreal buzzers and blowers — and the pleasantly reassuring chirps, wafts, and fragrances of Nature. Obviously there are countless other kinds of distraction in this overheated commercial and…

There have been times in my life when I was convinced the act of sleeping was an unnecessary habit promulgated by atavistic traditions as normal and necessary when in actual fact it was no more effective at promoting health and well-being than praying to some vague Power with your friends on Sunday morning. Who says…

“Prostitution,” the tall man states with serene confidence, “is the public promulgation of private parts for pecuniary purposes. Do we call it renting? Or selling? Letting? Or getting? And so what? “The real question,” he adds, sips his Longboard, holds the glassed amber before him in a neo-Mussolini salute, “is whether you are ever embarrassed…

Hanging out bareheaded, baldheaded in this sultry summer sun, gentle sea breezes tickling my ears, I think maybe there really is something to this fresh start idea and that just maybe those old worn-out and dying follicles will be inspired by this fresh open-ness to nouveau riche lushness, excuse my French. And isn’t that what…

My ironwood tree is a ghost. My habit of calling it MY tree has made it the ghost of an idea I had nearly twenty years ago when I planted it in front of our new home. Sort of invented it. Let it in, you might say. The right one, one always hopes. That was…

When I was a kid and ate candy bars, my favorite was Mountain Bar. Like a miniature mountain with a heavy coating of peanut-laced milk chocolate, its nougat interior sweetly beckoned, insisted, welcomed. The largest billboard on Tacoma’s busiest intersection was once filledwith the picture of a giant Mountain Bar with one neatly nougat-revealing bite…

“My dad’s better’n your dad.” “My dad’s stronger.” “My dad can pick up a bag of cement.” “My dad can pick up a bag of cement with one hand.” “Can he run with it? Like my dad?” “Like your mom, you mean.” “Your mom has a mustache. My dad’s taller than your dad.” “My dad…

Wafting, crooning Palolo trades Surge naked and serene across paired innocents. Pele’s na pepa li’li, Tactile as touch. Cupid’s vanilla swoon, Tacit as hush.