Stephen Dunn is a celebrity in my house. I quote him all the time on this blog. If I write a passive aggressive this is meant to burn someone Facebook post, I do it with poetry — usually, that means Dunn’s poetry. He’s as famous to me as David Sedaris or Stephen King, which means he’s as notorious as James Cameron or Peter Jackson to a normal person who doesn’t douse their life with literature. I started reading his work in…
It was bring-your-own if you wanted anything hard, so I brought Johnnie Walker Red along with some resentment I’d held in for a few weeks, which was not helped by the sight of little nameless things pierced with toothpicks on the tables, or by talk that promised to be nothing if not small. But I’d consented to come, and I knew what part of the house their animals would be sequestered, whose company I loved. What else can I say,…
Tim was not one for symbolic tattoos, even though he had lots of them. When I met him, I was pro tattoo but hadn’t actually taken the leap. Neither had many of my friends. In fact, my only real experience with tattooing was going with my best guy friend in high school to get his back done. He almost passed out, and I had to go to the grocery store next door to buy him a Sierra Mist to get…