Heart Candy

Heart Candy

Getting candy in a family with five kids when you’re the youngest is a rare treat. For me, it was all about Mary Mare. Mrs. Mare was an old woman on our street — she lived in the smallest house at the end next to Electric Boulevard with a cherry tree right there...
The Great Artist

The Great Artist

Do you ever feel like you’re reliving a similar experience that you’ve had before, but this time with a new twist or added element or slight or not so slight variation? It happens to me fairly often. Perhaps it’s because I carry certain past...
It’s tomorrow in Australia

It’s tomorrow in Australia

I don’t know how to articulate this, but I’ll give it a shot. Recently, I was standing in my sister’s kitchen and she was cooking something for her family for dinner. There was no part of it that didn’t include animal protein. She asked me to eat (like she...
From Red Lights to Gray Skies and Noses

From Red Lights to Gray Skies and Noses

It’s cold in Austria. Negative two degrees Celsius to be exact. Why did I come here? I only stopped asking myself that today, two seconds ago. Because now I know. It has something to do with Gogol and the red light district in Amsterdam. Also, the fact that I...
A Heart Like Pompei

A Heart Like Pompei

As things are really picking up around here between my ears, and as in another month and a half to decade and a half you will all be able to read my monumental latest (which has garnered a five star rating from both my mom and my girlfriend), it’s only natural...