"I wish someone would ask me about my regrets," one of my friends recently said to me. "What are your regrets?" I asked. She told me, but those are hers to tell, not mine. No worries though because I have plenty of regrets to talk about, most in the flavor of "Love is never having to say you're sorry" = bullshit. Or another friend told me, William Burroughs used to joke/not joke that every day he lived was another day full of regrets. Here's some of mine: I don't regret adopt

"I'm getting fixed!" says the mower. If it's on wheels at our place, it's in trouble. At least that's the consensus of a SUV, a compact car, an early 1960s tractor, an old Ford pick-up truck, and a self-propelled mower. What does it mean, I ask myself and Ken. "I think it means we need to put a lot more effort into moving ahead," Ken said. "I think it means we might need to slow down and stay put a little," I said. It also means there are hungry critters with strange appetite

Wonderful night photo by Stephen Locke, also the cover of my first novel (used with permission) When I was a little kid, the dark terrified me. At least, that's what I remember, but I think now I was just a night owl afraid of being alone, so I would pull myself up to standing in my crib and cry until someone came in. I didn't yet know how to befriend the dark I would come to love so much later on. When the dark encompassed the sky, I came alive, my little but fierce mind spi

Moxie smiling the day she arrived In the middle of the night I stepped out of bed, careful not to trip over the dog wedged against my side of the bed. Then I remembered: Moxie -- our very sweet, old, and somewhat weird border collie -- was dead When she moved in six years ago, Moxie acted as if we were always her forever home. We got her from dear friends, when we were considering a second dog to help our current one at the time -- the late, great Shay, our chocolate lab-Weim

Since the astonishing Coleman Barks died Feb. 23rd, I've been trying to write about this premier translator of Rumi, the ever-relevant 13th century Sufi mystic poet Coleman brought us. I especially want to tell the story of how I met Coleman when he was helping, in extraordinary fashion, my friend John Willison. But I stopped myself from writing this celebration of poets and poetry because of all the stuff happening in our world lately. ICE showed up in my town to disappear s