Showing Off

It’s been a long time since it was cool to go to a motorcycle show. Just corporate shills, and overpriced exotica, and hipsters and posers and fakes. Right? I don’t care, though. Turns out I like motorcycles quite a bit, enough to overcome my aversion to crowds. Enough to meet up with people I have … [more]

Boobs On The Ground

  I fell in love twice today, once more than my usual visit to the VA. Sophia is my cheerful torturer, lending me unearned vitality as she teases, cajoles, and punts me through my physical therapy regimen. I have a standard nurse crush on her, the kind you cherish for a woman who sees you … [more]

A toast you don’t hear much anymore

It goes something like this: Here’s to cops. The beat cops: uniforms, flatfoots, the rookies and the vets. The men in blue – and the women – who get called everything your mother told you not to say, back when you were a kid and remembered what it was like to respect other people. The … [more]

Memories? Well, yeah…

A lot of people maintain strong opinions, but I’m not sure how to respond to Memorial Day. A good friend reminds his fellow Americans that there’s no “happy” in a Memorial Day greeting; that it is to be construed as a pensive remembrance. Another friend makes a cogent argument for cheerful remembrance, with a toast … [more]

On not giving a fuck

“Your husband fights dirty,” the email announced to Pretty Wife, and she was right. I do. I’m not my dad, casually and frequently ruthless but so cheerful on a daily basis that he personifies his own smarmy, self-assumed nickname, “Smilin’ Jack.” I only smile when I mean it, and I may not be able to … [more]

Scuffs and Patches

Smalldaughter’s tone was polite but imperative. It was the second sentence that moved me into a sprint that made my back quit hurting. I heard her voice echo down the hall. “Jack, I need you. “Ruby got hit by a car.” The girls’ trust is touching. I wasn’t as  calm as they are when I … [more]

Weekend Dalliance

Felt a little guilty pulling up the Lynnwood Convention Center (exit 181B from I5 north, for those of you playing along at home) in a mere car, but I put a few miles on a couple of bikes this weekend and realized there’s a midwinter to middle age and it’s cold there. In the parking … [more]

Neighborhoody

Damn, but I hate it when people sneak up on me. NSTIW with my head under the van hood, poking at the battery terminals and trying not to short-spark my ratchet again, when I <heard a scrape / felt a shadow / turned around for no good reason> and there he was, scuffing his way … [more]