writer, warrior, whack-a-doodle

A Game of Inches

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Anyone can end up in hell: by the choices you make or by the luck of the lottery. Since nobody's going to reach in to pluck you out of hell and plop you into paradise, you have two choices:  stay there and be miserable or claw your way out---one inch at a time. That clawing thing sounds much more fun.  (more…)

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It's beautiful, sunny, shorts and short-sleeve weather in March. It must be California. There's our boy, caught between his two favorite bitches.

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Sometimes I feel like Lyme disease is a black hole and I'm standing on its event horizon. Petrified, yet consumed with its mystery. My feet too heavy to move from the crushing grip it has on me. One second of my life spent frozen on the event horizon and a life time of the world around me has passed.  Events come and go and I'm powerless to participate. I'm standing still while life around me moves at warp speed. (more…)

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It seemed like an eternity passed before I could find an angle that would capture both the dogs and a good portion of one of my favorite walking spots. After a few minutes of positioning the dogs, testing the angles and arguing with the cracker that "stay" means "stay" and that "look" means "look at me, not behind you for squirrels,"  I suddenly had their full cooperation.  I held the shutter button down and told them how wonderful they were and what a great payment they would receive.

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Patience. It's about the only thing in this house that's been getting any exercise lately, by human or canine. (more…)

Temptation Waits

"Princess I can resist anything but temptation."
"Yield to temptation, Big Boy. It may not pass your way again!" (more…)

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It was a warm, fall evening in Santa Cruz as Mr. Wild Dingo and I walked the dogs along the beach.  The usual sunset over the sea's horizon was gone and instead a dense wall of fog rolled in. Though it was windy, it just sat there, motionless, blocking the sun set from above. I just started to hit a new downturn in my health, so the weather brought a kind of comfort. It was as if Mother Nature could truly empathize in a way nobody else could as she eased the burden of the bright light on my sensitive eyes. (more…)

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It's time to take a page out of my dog's book on living.

In my life, I've been disciplined, dedicated and goal-oriented. I've had ambitions and dreams, just like anyone else. For the past few years, I've been struggling a bit with guilt that surrounds my no longer having any dreams. Lately, even my hobbies have dwindled. Being chronically ill not only robs you of drive and a desire to be productive in society, but it also impairs that will to participate in hobbies you once enjoyed. It leaves you empty and indifferent. Maybe even passionless.  I don't mean to sound dramatic or negative. I'm not sad, in fact, I'm fairly positive that I'm going to recover and get back to living my life with the vibrancy I once had. (more…)

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Purple haze all in my brain. Lately things don't seem the same.  

I've got Jimi on my brain for September's masthead.

In addition to having difficulty writing simple blog posts, it seems my amateur capacity for moderately decent photography has gone to crap. Sifting through all my photos taken in the past months was futile. Everything was out of focus or cropped just horribly wrong.

Out of desperation, I went outside the other night to take a few shots of the sunset from the west side of our house. Because you can't screw up sunsets, right? Wrong! You can. However,  I managed to get this shot above and I'm proud to say, it is straight out of the camera. Not a single post processing tweak has been made. Seriously though, don't you just want to kiss that sky?  (more…)

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Last weekend, we celebrated Juno's fifth anniversary of her adoption and her sixth birthday. She's all grown up now and I couldn't be prouder.

Long time readers may think my problem dog is the cracker, but Juno didn't come without her own set of issues. And we are not talking about her mastication addiction. In fact, allow me to illustrate with a few of Juno's early photos of the first day of her adoption. (more…)

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