Category: writing

Childhood on Fairview Avenue in Greenville: the backyard, Mom’s garden, and winter days sliding on the driveway with my older brother Gregg.

I’ve been working on a way to let you explore Fragments of a Life as the pieces arrive. There’s now a small, working demo on the site. Try the Fragments explorer. For now, it connects the project introduction and four short posts about finding your way around. You can click between them, follow a thread,…

There isn’t one right way into this project. Fragments of a Life is a memoir taking shape in pieces: childhood stories, later experiences, and reflections on things I understood differently as I got older. The books give those pieces a reading order. Here, I’m also making room for you to follow the connections. A house…

One memory often brings another with it. I might begin by describing the house where I grew up and find myself remembering something that happened in one of its rooms. Following that memory might bring me to my brother, a friend, or a question I still want to ask my mother. The connections in this…

Something happens when you’re a child. You remember it for years. Then a conversation, a photograph, or something your own child does changes how you understand it. The event belongs to one time. The new understanding belongs to another. Both are part of Fragments of a Life. Some posts will stay close to what I…

Right now, this is a small web of introductions. Soon, the stories will begin to fill it. I’m starting with childhood: the house, the neighborhood, the people, and the things I remember in pieces. Alongside those stories, I’ll share later reflections, questions, and things that come back through conversations with my family. The project will…

I have been writing about myself lately. I was the kid who didn’t understand math. The teacher had taught it. I knew she had taught it. I had been sitting there while she taught it. I still didn’t understand. The next lesson needed something from the previous lesson, and I was already missing that piece.…

I have learned something painfully obvious about love: You cannot fucking con someone into loving you. I do not mean “con” in the cold, calculated sense. I was not sitting somewhere developing a master plan to deceive anyone. Most of the time, I believed I was being caring, loyal, generous, and patient. But underneath that…

Good communication is a volley. That sounds simple. One person talks, then the other person talks. The conversational ball travels back and forth across the net. But taking turns is not the same thing as communicating. A real volley requires you to respond to the ball that was actually sent to you. You have to…

We all know it’s broken. What if AI helped us find one another instead of merely keeping us engaged? I have dinged ChatGPT’s suicide-warning system several times today. I have been talking about my divorce, therapy school, my history, and the times when I wanted to die. ChatGPT has had to stop and ask whether…

It is still strange to me that I am in school to become a therapist. Not because I do not believe I can do it. The farther I get into the program, the more I can see how much of my life has prepared me for this work. That may be the irony. I entered…

I sold my Nintendo Switch 2, and I have to admit that it put me in my feelings. I love Nintendo. I did not simply grow up playing its games. In some ways, I grew up alongside the company. Nintendo helped teach me what play could be: colorful, strange, inviting, and occasionally magical. Its best…

I don’t know where you are right now. I don’t know whether you are safe, whether you have somewhere to sleep, or whether you have already lost the things you worked so hard to rebuild. I don’t know whether you will ever read this. But if you do, I hope you recognize that someone was…

The Event Horizon We talk endlessly about AI as either the end of the world or the thing that will solve all the world’s problems. At the same time, nearly every problem now seems to be blamed on AI. Somehow, we have put all our eggs into a basket that none of us really asked…

I watched a video tonight where a woman said something that stopped me. She said that you have to feel safe to tell the truth. I understood immediately what she meant. Particularly now that I am studying to become a therapist, I understand why safety matters. People protect themselves when they don’t feel safe. We…

A few people have asked what I am actually doing in graduate school, so here is the slightly long and winding answer. I am taking four classes that look separate on paper but are beginning to feel like one enormous conversation: Systems is teaching me to stop looking at one person as “the problem” and…

Phantasy Star Online, AI, Schools, and a Future That Could Be Possible When I think about what I want artificial intelligence—and, more personally, what I want ChatGPT—to become, my mind keeps returning to Phantasy Star Online. That may sound ridiculous on several levels, but stay with me. In Phantasy Star Online, your character carries a…

I don’t know how you got here. I don’t know why you’re here. But I know that every once in a while, you are. Ten to twenty views a day doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but to me, it’s huge. Those are people checking in to see how things are…

The biggest sin in using AI in the arts right now is dishonesty. It is not simply using the technology. I use it. I have been open about using it. I have explained my process in my books and on my blog, and I invite people to look closely at what I have done. Decide…

It’s not your first time in a police car. There was that time somebody hit your mom’s car. No—your dad’s car. You saw who was driving, so the police took you with them. They drove you to a house where a man was yelling and beating his wife. They brought him outside, and you confirmed…

“Are you okay?” It’s a common question—one most of us shrug off with a “Yeah, I’m fine,” an “I’m just tired,” or a quick pivot: “How are you doing?” We hear it while passing people we aren’t going to know for long. At work. In hallways. At the grocery store. Most of the time, it…

I have been thinking a lot about what I am, particularly in the artistic arena. There has to be a different name for what I do than for what a more traditional artist does. Someone like my friend, Ember Carmilla Carousel has spent years creating element by element through her own writing and artwork. She…

I recently received what appeared to be one of the nicest messages an independent author can get. Someone contacted me saying she had tried to review one of my books on Amazon but had run into a problem. She asked whether I had a Goodreads page where she could post the review instead. Her message…

When I was young, someone crossed a sexual boundary with me. It happened once, and I have spent years minimizing it because other people experienced worse. I still do not know exactly what language I want to use for it, but it happened, it affected me, and I am trying to become comfortable acknowledging it.…

First, I don’t want to discount the struggles of women, minorities, or anyone facing obstacles I have never had to face. I know that I move through the world with privileges other people don’t have. But privilege does not mean a person cannot be lonely, lost, ashamed, or deeply disappointed in himself. A lot of…