Category: Crossroads

Proud to find a place at the Bull stable of chiseled chompers

November 7, 2023 / chiselch

Couples come in different shapes, sizes, colors.

Big fat smile on my face, to have new work at the lovely Bull site. As Senior Senior Editor of Editing Stuff & Things The Drevlow notes, this hybrid pub is “dedicated to examining the evolution of modern masculinity.”

“Exit Velocity” emerged from an image — of a ratty old house trailer, sitting in desert dirt. This happens frequently with me. I love road trips and locking in on something strange, lost, bottomless out in the middle of nowhere. I’m always thinking, “What in the hell is life like inside that piece of shit … habitation?”

In this case, everything beyond the trailer, which is everywhere and nowhere in particular, was entirely made up. Although I had a few real people in mind when I fleshed out the cast and conjured an alligator for a starring role.

My long, strange journey to “One Night Only”

June 6, 2023 / chiselch

Nearly four years ago, I woke one morning with a vivid scene from a dream hanging inside my head. Most nights, I dream crazy shit, but forget it all before I wake. This was different. And rich.

I ran for a pen and paper. Later, I used the scene as the jumping off point for a story that, recently, found public display at The Lowestoft Chronicle. It’s a web journal dedicated to tales of travel.

The story that emerged from my dream became “One Night Only.” It’s absurd, from start to finish, as dreams always are. I took the remembered part of an actual dream and used it as the diving board for a plunge into a litany of imaginative nonsense.

I love the story, because of its non-traditional narrative arc. There is no plot, just nonsense. The reader, I hope, sticks with it, to see where each inexplicable moment will lead. True to form, these moments lead to other inexplicable moments, inside which, a weird logic prevails. How can things make sense while making no sense at all?

Here’s to the spirit of fun. BTW, I was under no chemical influence at the time I wrote this piece. Proof, if ever it was needed, that we don’t need no stinkin’ drugs to act like we’re on drugs. Herewith, “One Night Only.”

Getting away …

January 11, 2023 / chiselch

Kathy and an old growth Douglas fir along the lower Rogue River trail.

Next door is a guy with a saw. Its voice cutting through metal sometimes comes through the wall. Mostly, not. His name is Shane, the guy. “Like the movie,” he said, when we introduced the day after pulling in with our car full of getaway crap.

He and Brandon were in the shop, doing what you do in a shop. The shop shares the back wall of our rental house. We have the wall of windows with a view of the ocean, windows that rattle and wake us in the night when the wind gusts up over 40.

Windows face the sea from the dining room, kitchen, living room, bedroom. Beyond that, on the deck, sits a hot tub. In the hot tub, daily, sits my wife. I join her, often, because why not?

We watch nature TV. Rain clouds coming and dumping. Waves tumbling and frothing. Sun, occasionally winking through it all, to remind us of the source behind our gray skies.

We’re visiting in a stormy cycle, early January, a getaway. From what? To what? Those are the questions I ask when considering departure from my comfortable, familiar home.

Snow has come and gone several times this winter. Freezing rain crusted all the snow, when we returned in the rain from a brief trip to the coast over Christmas. It was 9 degrees the day we left for the coast.

For a break from all that inclemency, we snagged this rental on the southern Oregon coast, timed to coincide with one of the snarliest bouts of winter weather in years. Day after day of heavy rain, flooding coastal and central California, pushing river levels high and higher near us. We expeected power outages but have, for the moment, dodged that side dish at our winter feast.

We brought hiking shoes, rain gear, whiskey. No sunscreen. We sit. We read. We leave with the dog for a hike. No freezing rain, yet, but the rain has undercut a stretch of highway we were hoping to use for our return. Instead, we must take a lengthy detour. If the weather doesn’t close that, too. If it does, we might be forced to stay longer.

That wouldn’t be so bad. Before he dipped into his fix-it stuff yesterday, Shane handed me a bowl of eggs freshly plucked from beneath his chickens. Damn, they taste so good, staring out at the ocean, wondering about the health of all that still lives there, hoping they and we all live long and healthy lives.