Stir So I went outside in the morning dark. The town already wide awake, excited, true. Like the quick intake of breath. Like the root and the stir. Like the clutch of a tongue-tied pinky swear. And packed purposefully into layers of clothes, I went chasing the down and the din.

On My Jeans Not Setting Right with My Ass (And Other Conundrums) Right now, I have several pairs of wearable jeans. But not one of them is my favorite. My favorites all have big holes in them. And that leaves me with no old standby to wear to anything that isn't a Poison concert or my monthly Grunge Club social. Even then, it's really just too cold to wear these swathes of denim. So instead, I wear one of The Others.

The Truth About Mirrors Despite what you may have heard, I am not a dog. I walk upright. I understand the truth about mirrors. I'm a reasonably intelligent guy. And I can do any number of tricks. But I've got these mistakes I keep making. I've made them as long as I can remember, and I've yet to learn the trick of how to stop.

I Didn't Go to DC to End Up Drinking Naked in Bed with Another Woman (But I'm Not Complaining) And speaking of pure, this is about the point in the evening when we were picked up by a wedding-white stretch Hummer, tremendous in its indecency. Inside, multi-colored laser lights danced on the ceiling and in our hair as we sipped OJ and Peach Vodka from plastic champagne flutes while reclining on those magnificent dark seats.

I Didn't Go to DC to End Up Drinking Naked in Bed with Another Woman (But I'm Not Complaining) And speaking of pure, this is about the point in the evening when we were picked up by a wedding-white stretch Hummer, tremendous in its indecency. Inside, multi-colored laser lights danced on the ceiling and in our hair as we sipped OJ and Peach Vodka from plastic champagne flutes while reclining on those magnificent dark seats.

New Jersey Has Made Me Realize What is Important But life has brought us to the Garden State and, I've got to say, aside from the constant ache I feel in my ass from being repeatedly violated by our township on our property taxes every three months, it ain't all that bad up here. Still, there has been something missing from our lives. Something that used to bring us great joy and that we really took for granted for so long ...

Never Try to Quit Smoking When There's a Thong in Your Husband's Gym Bag He told me the panties belonged to a stripper. I guess that's supposed to make me feel better. It doesn't. They weren't mine. And while I guess it's possible that they're ... his, I don't think that's it.

Get Me Out of Town, Is What Fireball Said Friday was a 26-hour day that began in the dark hours of morning at Newark Airport and ended at a North Beach strip club. The devil built Columbus and Broadway out of discarded bottles of original sin, brother. And he called it good. Believe.

Tawny, with a Capital T, which Rhymes with P, and that Stands for Poo I'm pretty sure it took all of twenty minutes for that first turd to fall. And it really fell, flat and hot and reeking like something dishonest, on the dog's water bowl. Dog's aren't supposed to crap on their own water bowl, are they?

The Short Happy Life of a Toro Lawn Mower Apparently, my mower decided it had had enough of this grass-cutting shit. It died on me yesterday. I think God is pissed at me for last week's post. Maybe I should go ahead and apologize now.

Taking on the Shed If you look closely at the backyard of your soul, you'll find a shed. And it's something you've gazed at a million times before and it's always remained closed and mysterious, and surrounded by ice. Familiar, but strange. Holding so much promise, but surrounded by challenge and danger.

If I Were Having an Affair, You'd Be the First to Know I didn't even share with her my fantasy of bathing in grits while watching live grit-wrestling on TV.

Catching Glimpses of God It was fitting that I was in Montreal the day Oscar Peterson died.

The Greatest Post in the World: A Tribute You've had this happen. I know you have.

Heart, Meet Sleeve But the real question I was asking myself, right, was how did I end up being this person having a cardiac stress test?

One True Sentence I've been reading and re-reading Hemingway lately, partly because I'm just enjoying his style, but partly because I'm hoping to learn, through osmosis, the art of writing while pleasantly pissed. Unfortunately, I haven't had much luck in this pursuit . . .

Scenes from the Lingerie Section A man and a woman are in the lingerie section at Macy's. It seems like they've been shopping for a while. Maybe it's undershirts that bring them to this particular location in the mall. Or bras . . .

I'm Almost 100% Sure My Neighbor is not a Werewolf I hear the noises mostly at night, when I'm doing my stretches.

Life as a Nomad, Part Deux Let me cut to the chase: we're moving. Again.

Grilling Instructions Looking back, I have to say the manual gave some interesting 'suggestions,' but I quickly determined that - because I only had two turkey burgers to grill and not steaks for twenty - I would do things differently. Clearly, these instructions were for people with many mouths to feed. This was just two burgers for C and me. Surely, I'd be able to cut a few corners. And I was right! I'm not selfish when it comes to information, so I thought I'd go ahead and share my special method with all of you.

Underneath it All It's crazy heavy in here. Like God playing chess with Nietzsche.

Place: It's Where it's At, For Now As I ate, people walked past, and I listened to the strange temporal quality of their footsteps. The way they suddenly came into my aural bubble, and just as suddenly vanished. One moment they were there, in front of me, belonging to that person. These feet on gravel. The next minute they were gone, along with the person who brought them. These footsteps. Now quiet.

Wait for The Wolf, Who Should be Coming Directly When our contractor said he was sending out a 'cleaner' to detail the bathroom for us, the first image to come to my mind was Harvey Keitel, as "The Wolf" in Pulp Fiction.

A Winter Coat in Spring Head down, against this wind. I don't want to face these things. It's easier not to look ahead. To a familiar place where hard decisions become missed opportunities.

Open Doors One way to measure a lifetime is by how much forgetting you do, and how well you do it.

I Don't Drive Truck On the way to Dallas I met an older guy who was heading to Puerto Vallarta with his wife for the holidays. Anyway, I immediately liked him because he had a way with language.

Language Arts As we got closer to the metal detectors, a TSA agent made an important announcement.

Warning: Habit-Forming I've gone off the coffee, which has had some slightly averse affects on my head over the last couple of days. For starters . . .

Circles No, I only made this fortunate discovery about a week ago, and it proves my theory that, if it wants to, serendipity will find you - in spite of yourself.

One of These Things is Not Like the Other In the men's bathroom at Tryst in Adams Morgan, a game of graffiti has been unfolding in the tiny space between the wall tiles for some time.

When Things Go Missing Our car was stolen, and we are sad.

Relics in Their Own Time Unlike MJ, I wholeheartedly think writers should be blogging. Especially good writers. I think the medium is calling out to them, but a lot of writers are late to the party, or are staying home altogether.

At Least Hell has a Dry Heat There are a number of possibilities as to why DC might be experiencing an upsurge in crime this summer. I'll add one more to the mix: swamp butt.

On Writing: A Confession I think this stems from a fact about writing that many writers, including me, don't like to admit: We don't actually like to write.

Fountain is for Drinking Only At my YMCA, there is a room called the 'Red Room.' As you might imagine, the walls of the Red Room are a deep shade of red.

Early Morning Interrogations Again, there was searching. Another noisy search for the right answer. Then came the response: Garage.

Sidewalk Prophet At the time, I was deep in thought, worrying over some minor detail of my day. The question broke me out of my reflection long enough to realize that, yeah it was pretty damn great to be alive. And hell if that wasn't pretty much all that mattered.

Connectedness As I stand there peeing, listening to the opening music sequence on the Colbert Report coming from my living room, and watching it on two plasma-screen TVs a block away, I feel a true sense of connectedness with my neighbors.

Unintelligent Design I yearn to devolve. I yearn to return to the primordial ooze.

I don't have a dishwasher It's primitive, I know. Almost obscene, isn't it? And yet, I'm not sad. Honestly. I've yet to shed a tear over my dishwasherless state.

Gender Stereotype Debunking #1 Watching her work can be mesmerizing, but because I don't understand it, I'm mostly left feeling baffled and vaguely nauseous.

A Lazy Saturday Afternoon's Entertainment We were a tad bitter to have have been chased from the fresh air outside. Another couple sat at the exact same table we had been at. We glared at them through the window.

The Fold No this is going to take something else. This is going to take a wicked sort of curiosity, a relentless interrogation. This is going to take a trip back to the womb.

Haiku of Spilled Paint It left a puddle of white paint in the road; a puddle which my poor red VW GTI discovered at approximately 3:00 this afternoon while looking for a parking spot.

I Own a Mercedes? By now I was a bit dazed. I offered her the oddly-formatted document that showed I owned two cars and managed to utter the words, 'Not mine.'

Ramblings from a Hypochondriac It is recommended by some of the guide books to Costa Rica that you have a Hepatitis A vaccine before going. As I would like to minimize my risk for any unpleasant sicknesses while vacationing, I signed Catherine and I up for a dose and we went last Frida

The Fly in the Ointment Applying ointments and conditioners of various kinds has become an integral part of my day . . .

Salty That was the problem with Mongolian barbecue. In the end you had nobody to blame for your bad meal but yourself. This was my second time at such a place, and both times the outcome was the same: shit.

Love is the small things You stood there on the ice, black shoes firmly planted, smiling at me, your lips just above your purple scarf, your cheeks rosey.