Complete Blog Archives

Oh, the Humanity

Oh, the Humanity

“A thing isn’t beautiful because it lasts.” This line was spoken near the end of Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it’s stuck with me long after the movie ended. It is, I think, the central theme of it all, perfectly describing the human race, it’s/our imperfections, our constant search for trying to make things …

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Finn the Cat

Finn the Cat

We lost Finn, a rescue cat, today to a feline virus. After months of vet visits and sweat and tears, and Kristie the foster mom’s sleepless nights and days of work and worry to save him, and a group of people pooling together enough money to try experimental drugs and pay for blood tests and …

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Book Sample: Welcome to California

Book Sample: Welcome to California

Description: Selections from copy that was researched and written for a book regarding California education, dated April 17, 2014.   California: The Golden State   If California were a country, it would have the eighth largest economy in the world. Over 200 languages are spoken. It has more colleges and universities than any other state, and its …

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Ledge of the Floor

Ledge of the Floor

Between the rise and fall of a leaf caught in a persuasive breeze comes a moment of pause, of reflection. The roof and the ledge, and the paint, and how they all change the direction of the wind, unless it chooses the height of a cloud. The storm and the ocean, and the beckoning warmth …

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The Age of Distraction

The Age of Distraction

Stop. Remember what Joseph Campbell said about the dragon scales, what was written on each one: Thou Shalt. Thou shalt get to thy appointment by 10am. Thou shalt take thy vitamins. Thou shalt pick up the dry cleaning. Thou shalt have breakfast while checking thy email, watching the TV news, texting to thy colleagues, and …

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Handwriting on the Phone

Handwriting on the Phone

I downloaded this app http://www.font.my/ and made a font from my own handwriting. It’s not perfect but not bad. Here’s a sample:   The words are from one of my poems, “a.m.”:   the streetlamps dim to push sleep past the sidewalk up through windows into bedrooms like an ether with a deep breath that …

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This Gray Mosaic

This Gray Mosaic

My mom described it best: “It looks like Tacloban went in a shredder and was spit out.” The Philippines was never a bright, colorful Disney movie, at least not where the people live. Where the people live, it’s often overcast with a haze from pollution or the latest storm, or a combination of both. Humidity …

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Meme Cat

Meme Cat

    Meme Cat   look at my picture a half dozen times ooh and aah and make that animal-loving aww sound then click “like” and go away, to the next heartwarming story to your day filled with choices and sunlight and many many windows I would like just one window, my own with a …

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Spirit of the People

Spirit of the People

A man walks into a building to work at a job that he hates because ten years ago he proposed to a pretty girl. He sits at a desk that faces a sealed window and does just enough work so that he doesn’t get fired. He defends the company that he works for while he …

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Wire of the World

Wire of the World

I’m afraid for the man on the wire of the world spinning out of a control from a ledge of a stick breaking pieces of a brick dusty hammer swinging thick through the glue of a paper tearing crooked like a crack like a window in the back missing color lose a thrill kick a …

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Snow

Snow

America’s greatest strength might also be its worst weakness; it is one of, if not the only, country on Earth that will deplete its resources, delay its progress, and sacrifice the health of its majority in order to help those few who continually, habitually make bad choices.

Goals, by Priority

Goals, by Priority

Creativity Unfettered creativity Unregulated unfettered creativity Unscheduled unregulated unfettered creativity Unfearing unscheduled unregulated unfettered creativity Kind unfearing unscheduled unregulated unfettered creativity Paris, France

Hurdles

Hurdles

When I was in middle school, during P.E. we had to jump hurdles as part of our physical tests. Because I was at least five inches shorter than the other boys, jumping those hurdles seemed impossible, and whenever I tried, as hard as I jumped, my feet would always knock against the tops of every …

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A Quiet Time and Place

A Quiet Time and Place

I woke up to sounds that weren’t produced by electricity. A breeze that needed nothing from me entered the bedroom window, passed over me to let me know that the world was still breathing. The bed sheet rustled unevenly, got out of my way so that I could go to the window to open the …

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Destitute Institute

Destitute Institute

Destitute is an adjective, defined as “not having the basic necessities of life.” There is a new campaign by large pet food manufacturers that advises against feeding raw food to cats and dogs. Raw food, they say, is unsafe and not as balanced a diet as, for example, anything Iams or Purina or Beneful makes. …

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Know and Not

Know and Not

During the latest episode of HBO’s The Newsroom, one of the journalists posed the question, “If God talks to you, what does His voice sound like?” The fact that I capitalized Him in the above sentence should tell the reader that yes, I do believe in God. I believe in a God that is as …

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Writing Sample: Robotic Gastrectomy for Cancer

Writing Sample: Robotic Gastrectomy for Cancer

Description: Selections from copy that was researched and written for the USC Department of Surgery Guide to Robotic Gastrectomy website and patient handout, dated July 23, 2012. Robotic Gastrectomy at USC Department of Surgery Surgical oncologists and thoracic surgeons at the Upper GI and General Surgery division at the Keck School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery continually …

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