Category: Life

Why I no longer partake of cannabis

November 6, 2025 / chiselch

Like many people, I’ve enjoyed some cannabis experiences. And not. These days, it’s mainly an occasional gummy tilted more toward CBD.

I grew one plant a couple of years ago, did all the right stuff, trimmed and seasoned it and burped the jar, and now it sits in my garage, lonely, forlorn, reminding me often of how its level has not lowered in over a year.

We were invited to a house party a few years ago, after pot became legal in Oregon. Hosts were retired professionals with U.S. foreign service. And admitted users. We shared a motley buffet while a Jerry Garcia-looking guy played guitar. Kathy offered to get us dessert. She came back with a lacy bit of candy, taken from a tray that said Edibles. Small type said experienced users could take one, less experienced a half.

I popped the damned thing. It was tiny. Like semi-dried caramel.

Then I engaged a conversation with a guy I know and respect. About 15 minutes in, it hit me. Lord, was I whacked. I’m thinking, this guy surely notices, and I hope I’m maintaining and not betraying my idiocy (any more than usual, that is).

I gave Kathy the car keys. I could barely walk.

Next day, I asked this same guy if he had noticed anything. No, he said, enjoyed the conversation.

Stupid.

2nd place winner in Cambridge Short Story Prize 2025

September 15, 2025 / chiselch

I rarely enter writing contests, not because I don’t believe in my work, but more because I’ve been to Vegas. The odds.

So it was with a bit of what-the-heck that I tossed a story into the Cambridge Short Story Prize 2025 competition earlier this year, sponsored by TSS Publishing, the folks behind The Short Story web site. Imagine my shock to learn that I had placed second?

I want to get one of those big foam fingers that has a We’re #2 on it, so I can put it on my hand and pump it up and down at appropriate occasions. Not sure what those would be, but you get the idea. This and a bottle of Coke qualify me as much as anyone for the Nobel. Hey, maybe President Trump and I could share a room?

But on second thought …

Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s a link to the story. It’s a bit dark, informed by the painful experience of someone I knew long ago.

Something Quirky and Gothic, Just for You

July 7, 2025 / chiselch

Happy over here to celebrate the appearance of my story “Wisdom & Co.” among a host of other fine fictions at The Short Story site. It’s a lean, clean temple to short fiction — and other narrative, reviews and interviews with diverse talents. You wouldn’t know from looking at it, but it’s a British citizen of the world stage. Rupert Dastur helms this mighty ship.

There’s always a seed for my stories. This one emerged from a dream — a recurrent dream — about me wandering around in a newspaper newsroom, at a loss for how I got there and what I’m supposed to do. It’s a nightmare, about the collapse of print journalism and the end of that part of my life. But it’s more than that. It’s about siblings holding on to the past, distince personalities most at home among similar types. I set it in a venue inspired by a trip to Savannah, Ga., in early 2024. Antebellum houses, adult children still tied to their mother’s apron strings.

Anyway, if you wish to read it, go here — or go home.

Technology justifies itself after the criminal fact

December 2, 2024 / chiselch

Ahh, the poor, hapless tigress, blinded by the pursuit of her prey. Confident, yes, that she has executed the perfect crime. Done in, as it happens, by the ubiquitous technology of our modern times. Don’t leave home without it. Check out the full tale in the latest issue of the Lowestoft Chronicle, here.

Tale inspired by a past that felt like quicksand: “Unfurnished,” in Does It Have Pockets?

November 2, 2024 / chiselch

Check out a fresh story of mine — it’s titled “Unfurnished” — just up today on hip new lit site, Does It Have Pockets?

As with all things fiction, this tale has its roots all tangled up in memories of the author’s own early days out in the world, making a hash of almost everything. There’s a first time? For everything? Seriously?

Oh, yeah. If we’re lucky enough to survive our life education’s early years, we might learn to do a few things right, occasionally. Tip the scales toward normalcy, whatever that is. Maybe it’s just a painless state. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

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.