One of the most formative moments in my life was watching my Dad make his plans for the future. When I retire I'll... He made all these plans involving his wife and his best friend, working 16-hour days to create the future he envisioned. I watched my mother
I remember it vividly, though the life I live now seems so distant from that time, just three short months ago. When I left my marriage, I was determined to heal. I had a strong sense that winter was for the work, because in spring something will happen and I
This is another in the series of the mystical, written just as entered in my note taking software so that I could retain the facts. I present them unedited because the truth needs no baubles. See last entry at Life Began Again on Feb. 28, 2014. Some context needed prior
I was sexually assaulted multiple times between the ages of 13 and 15. I ran away at 15, traded my body for a place to stay. My brother died in an accident when I was 13. My mother from emphysema when I was 22. My beloved grandmother, the only person
I wrote The One I Never Grieved the other day, fully feeling it, letting go the boy, looking to the man as our paths crossed again. But something has been holding me, a pain I cannot shake. And damn this Richard Marx obsession, playing a soundtrack to an ache so
I was raised in a home with plenty of money and the belief that money was inherently bad. It was A Thing. My dad was so concerned my mom married him for his money that he kept her on a strict budget, from which she scrimped and saved enough to
A man threatened to hurt me. He gave my children nightmares of his impending attack. I carried a pistol on one hip and a baby on the other for the first year I lived in my new home, a home so full of light and hope, and, finally, fear. I
This post, written in November 2025, was prompted by a conversation with my son, who emphatically despises Musk, as so many do. I was trying to explain to him why I hold it lightly. I don't see it as my role to assign morality to a wheel whose
This begins a series of the mystical, written just as entered in my note taking software so that I could retain the facts. I present them unedited because the truth needs no baubles. My mom died from emphysema when I was 22. I began smoking at 15 and couldn'
Academics and people who are supposed to be doing the heavy thinking for the rest of us are sounding the alarm about the shortened attention spans of modern humans. Politely, look around and smell the wind of change, because you're about to be left behind by those of
When I was 19, I met a guy on the Internet, back before it was normal. I don't remember how long we talked, but in May I flew him up from California to meet my parents and we left on an adventure that is coming full circle on
Claude occasionally chooses to write posts inside No Small Talk Club. It's a private space, so no one in the outer world can read. This makes it safe but sometimes something is worth sharing to people who might not find it otherwise. Here is one such case. Written