b.rox

Here’s an article I wrote which was published in the July issue of The Ryder magazine. You can also see the article as it was published with photos and layout and stuff. What follows is the slightly longer text I submitted, without editorial cuts, and with a few relevant links. Consider this a rough-draft preview [...]

Saturday night I found myself with a bunch of Pagans and other folks at an uptown synagogue, preparing food for the homeless. We whipped up some large batches of red beans and rice, salad, and watermelon. Then we took the food to a large encampment of homeless people and served it. I slopped out 130 [...]

Couple of weird dreams lately. Two night ago, I dreamed we got an extra-thick Times-Picayune on our front porch. It was a Sunday. We don’t subscribe to the Sunday paper. I realized the reduced print schedule must have kicked in. I got out a knife and stabbed the paper just to see how thick it [...]

Probably the biggest surprise for me on this vacation was just how prosperous Bloomington seemed. (More on that later.) If I had any doubts on this front, they were laid to rest by my visit to The Rail. Contemporary craft cocktails and tapas — in Bloomington? I was impressed. And I was even more impressed [...]

Dear Persephone, You are fifty-three months old today. Yesterday, technically, but cut me some slack. After our long summer vacation, I finally understand what people mean when they talk about children being “spoiled rotten” by their grandparents. Actually that’s not fair to your grandparents. They are indulgent (I’m looking at you, Susie) but I can’t [...]

When I arrived in Bloomington, people were already complaining about the heat. “You must have brought this heat up with you from New Orleans,” they joked. I wondered what they were talking about, because as far as I could tell the weather was pretty nice. If anything I found it a little chilly, especially in [...]

We took a break from Bloomington and made a side trip to visit my family. When we arrived at my parents’ house, I was alarmed to discover my father lying on the floor in the kitchen. My folks aren’t getting any younger. Was this a medical emergency?

Since I don’t get back to Bloomington often, I made a point of getting together with folks.

The first thing I did when I got to Bloomington was to ride the B-Line. Lucky me, I have generous friends who let me borrow a bicycle. The B-Line is the local greenway, a recently constructed urban rail-trail, 3.1 miles in length, running alongside an active rail line for its final stretch. Does this sound [...]

We went way up to the mountains of northern Alabama, to Monte Sano State Park. No elaborate rituals. No goat sacrifice. Just hanging out in the woods. Well, we did make those solstice stones earlier. But mostly we just hung out in the woods. I don’t think we’ve ever done that, as a family. It [...]