What a Life

Send a text Around college, my writing imploded. A professor told me a computer could write better poetry; where was the self in it? So I started from scratch, revisiting what it means to write at all. In the process, I have turned myself upside-down. 

Send a text It's easy to let your 40s creep up on you. It's even easier to let exhaustion and resignation take over. I've seen this all too frequently in my own life lately: Weekday nights spent gorging ice cream on the couch watching TV to escape. Clearly I need to turn something upside-down; why can't I? Am I doing this midlife crisis thing wrong? 

Send a text Ash Wednesday and Valentine's (un)fortunately overlapped this year. It made me laugh: the juxtaposition of a day designed to acknowledge the fleeting nature of life and a day when we celebrate the impermanence of love. It also got be thinking. Maybe we're looking at both wrong. Maybe they're more similar than we think...

Send a text I sometimes find myself conducting music in my living room. Eyes closed, arms flailing. I'm not conducting Mahler or Bach or Copland. It's usually some forgettable tune that strikes a chord. This episode, I open up about my sometimes embarrassing musical tastes, and how they keep me grounded in the past — good and bad — while preparing me for what's to come (including ex...