Quiet night over the Third Planet. Specifically, somewhere over West Texas. So many red dots down there, flashing in unison. Thousands of them blanket West Texas, flashing like a bunch of Operation board games, kids failing to pull out the funny bone at the exact same time. Oil rigs, in case you were wondering. There
From above, towns and cities and villages and parishes all look different. All tiny, but they share the same structures. The churches with their steeples glistening in the sun, and the schools with ballfields, tiny dots of players running like swarms of European starlings moving as one. Jails have geometric buildings that hold plenty of
The article (A Cookie Calling Card for Travelers) came out three days after my son was born, but the events in the story happened months earlier. It was one of those stories that gets written and then sits around waiting for a slow news day. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. once said he hoped to die
At 16 years old, moments are harder to come by these days that remind me he was once my little boy. “Did I do okay, Dad?” This was the first thing I heard him say upon coming to from sedation following a six-hour surgery. He was still on oxygen and talking through a mask. He
