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Like (apparently) many millennials, I have this thing where I loosely track my horoscope to see if there’s useful insight/encouragement in the summaries. What helps me absorb the guidance is telling myself a story about how I don’t give it much credence. Did you know modern zodiac signs are actually an entire month off? And…

I was facilitating introductions around a seventeen-person room to kick off a two day planning meeting in Juneau, AK last week. Participants were asked to share the usual – name, role, etc – and also something that inspires them to do the work they do. In the role of facilitator, my job is to maintain…

It may come as a surprise to learn that Crocs can shrink in direct sun. It’s a sad, sad thing to find one’s pair of shoes have reduced by an entire size in an afternoon. It’s why I’ve scrupulously shoved my (many) pairs of my beloved Crocs under seats in the car or, as was…

He did it long before TikTokers: Bob Ross set himself up with an easel and broadcast his painting for people to behold in real time. As I kid I’d watch him on PBS. I wasn’t watching for his technique. Like many people I found his painting hypnotic and satisfying: as he applied his brushstrokes, I…

Wes asked: “You have to pick a place to live. Would you choose Framingham or Vegas?” “Vegas,” I replied without thinking. He agreed, and paused. “Okay, Vegas or Boston?” I paused for just half a beat longer, but still returned with: “Vegas”. He agreed with that too. We were driving the spaghetti mess of Vegas’…

In early 2011, I sternly sat myself down to journal. I’m an intermittent diarist, but in this moment I had a particular task: design my upcoming move to and life in Reno, NV. I was upending everything I knew in Alaska to go see about a guy who lived there. I had enough bravery (recklessness?)…

I was scrolling through the photos on my art phone – did you know you can call/text me at (907) 390-9983?! Try it! – looking for reference photos for new paintings. Interspersed in all the pictures were so many memories from the past six months that already felt like they took place in a different…

When I was a kid, bored as hell trapped in my childhood bedroom by yet another round of illness/asthma, I often passed the time by drawing. I drew magazine clippings of celebrities. I drew the inside of my closet, or the tree outside. This was long before the hypnotic draw of smartphones, so my attention…

I had a nagging feeling through mid-August, September, and somehow I’m already nearly done with October: I said I’d write. I take my commitments seriously; sometimes too seriously. As the days wore into weeks and months and I still wasn’t updating this blog as consistently as I’d intended, I decided to let it go. Wes…

Wes’s alarm went off at 4:45am. He peeled back the single bedsheet we’d pulled up at some point in the night, moved to the foot of the fold-out bed, walked three feet across the floor, and tapped a small battery operated puck light in the bathroom. This was enough to illuminate the trailer in the…

I don’t know how many people know this about me. It feels like I share pretty openly and freely, but it’s still so outside of how I come across now (yet so deeply shaped my identity and how I approach my life) that it feels worth repeating. I had chronic asthma as a kid. Due…