I got a new camera a few weekends ago–the most serious camera I’ve ever owned. I didn’t get a chance to put it through its paces right away (though I’ve since found that I’m pleased so far with its compact, solid feel and its performance in low light, and after a whole day with it,… — read more

In the summer of 2000, in the midst of the bike trip that began the ongoing negotiation with emotional health in which I am still embroiled, I found myself in Århus, Denmark in the rain. Though it was early July, the rain had followed us all through Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany, and continued to dog… — read more

Last night, the night of the winter solstice, I flipped open my copy of John Ashbery‘s Notes from the Air, pretty much at random, to “And the Stars Were Shining,” which begins thus: It was the solstice, and it was jumping on you like a friendly dog. The stars were still out in the field,… — read more

Last Sunday evening, still fretting over an apparent relapse in my ostensibly healing ear, I watched the HBO/BBC production of As You Like It. It was a wonderful choice for that moment, offering a convincing portrayal of a reality where all may be right and all difficulties may be overcome. And the center of this… — read more

In the course of an e-mail conversation earlier this summer, I managed to convince a dear family friend (my mother’s college roommate, who bears the charming sobriquet of “Auntie Roomie”) to read some Thomas Pynchon. I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever convinced anyone to follow me down this particular rabbit hole, and I… — read more

I just read through Nicholson Baker‘s Human Smoke. It’s an unlikely page-turner, but it is a page-turner. It is, as its subtitle claims, an account of the beginnings of World War II and, Baker feels, the end of civilization. Many writers have assumed that civilization ended at some point in the twentieth century, and each… — read more

I’ve read James Joyce’s Ulysses three times, and after the third reading, I was even able to offer independently formed (if perhaps not original) ideas and opinions about it. I write this not to brag (there are, after all, those who have been able to offer independently formed and startlingly original ideas and opinions about… — read more

The Interdependence Project has posted the second issue of their dharma arts magazine, Sentient City, and once again they’ve published one of my essays. This one is called “What Should I Be When I Grow Up?” It’s a consideration of management as a mystical practice, and unlike the previous essay of mine they published, it… — read more

Here, in Chapter 10 of Part One of On the Road, is the whole of the novel in half a paragraph: She was a nice little girl, simple and true, and tremendously frightened of sex. I told her it was beautiful. I wanted to prove this to her. She let me prove it, but I… — read more

Yesterday morning, I had my last therapy session. After seven years, I’ve… graduated? Of all the portrayals and descriptions of therapy that I’ve seen and read–how it starts, how it helps, how it goes wrong, what it’s like–none have addressed how it finishes. When I started the process, younger and more ambitious, I thought I’d… — read more