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Life, Truth, Dreams, and the Occasional Spaghetti with Meatballs
By a Guy Who Thinks Best While Walking His Dog Some mornings arrive with a purpose. You can feel it in the air before the coffee is even finished brewing. The world is quiet. The sky is still deciding what shade of blue it wants to be. The roads are mostly empty except for the…
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An Evening Stroll with Just a Man and His Dog
By a guy who still looks up at the night sky and remembers when the stars meant something. The evening shows up the way it always does. Its calm, familiar feeling like a quiet old friend who doesn’t need to say much. There’s a comfort to it, like a favorite sweater that still carries a…
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The Real Housewives of the Dog Park
By a guy who now knows twenty-seven dogs by name but still has no idea what their owners are called There is, tucked neatly into the suburban machinery of Short Pump Dog Park, a surprisingly civilized little kingdom for dogs and the exhausted humans attached to them. Unlike most dog parks — which resemble the…
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Where Home Awaits
by a guy who has learned that distance measures miles, not meaning Here I am in Houston, Texas—two thousand miles from a little house in Virginia—and the night feels just unfamiliar enough to make a man think. It’s quiet in a different way here. Not the kind of quiet that wraps around you like a…
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Driving Cultures of the World: Or, How Humanity Somehow Still Arrives Alive
By a guy who has been tailgated, politely apologized to, aggressively gestured at, spiritually tested, mildly terrified, and once overtaken by a vehicle carrying livestock. There are many great mysteries in life. Why toast always lands butter-side down. Why socks vanish in the laundry. And, perhaps most baffling of all, how eight billion people, armed…
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A Reasonably Sized Dog with Unreasonable Authority
By a man who has been outsmarted daily by a creature the size of a loaf of bread For seven years now, I have lived with a small, fluffy dictator named Georgie. He is, on paper, a Shih Tzu–Bichon mix. Which sounds delightful and harmless, like something you’d order with tea. In reality, he is…
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Four Seasons and the Complete Madness of Human Beings
By a man who has noticed that no matter what the weather is doing, people are absolutely certain it should be doing something else. Let’s begin in winter. Winter is the time of year when human beings collectively forget that cold exists. Every single year, without fail, it arrives like an unexpected tax bill. “Oh…
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2,000 Miles, One Dog, and Zero Regrets (Except for All of It)
by a guy who should’ve known better, but somehow keeps saying yes anyway Just before Thanksgiving, my girlfriend visited me in Richmond, VA and convinced me to spend the holiday with her in Houston — or as I prefer to call it, hell with excellent barbecue. One minute I was enjoying the crisp Virginia air,…
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Bumper to Bumper with Buffoons: A Driver’s Rant
By someone who used to be chill, but then you parked like a clown. I’ve been watching people lately—just sitting back and observing the slow-motion car crash we call “society”—and I can’t decide whether the world is spiraling into the abyss, or if I’m simply becoming a grumpier, less tolerant version of myself. It used…
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Where the Past Walks Beside Us on Independence Day
Today as the sun comes up over in Richmond, Virginia— I find myself thinking about this city and its past. Richmond is not afraid to show its history. It carries it right out in the open, where you can see it, feel it, with the scars laid bare. It’s not hidden or polished. It’s in…
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Richmond is Melting and So Am I
By a man who thought Virginia summers were supposed to be charming and full of fireflies, not the actual fires of hell. It is currently 102°F in Richmond, Virginia. That’s not a heatwave—that’s the sun filing a restraining order against us for getting too close. The weather app isn’t even pretending anymore. It just says…
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Airport Survival Guide: Cry Quietly and Carry On
The airport. A monument to mankind’s ability to take something majestic—flight, freedom, the sheer glory of defying gravity—and turn it into a sort of bureaucratic cattle prod run by people who think “urgent” is a type of seasoning. Let’s start with getting there. You set off three hours early, because apparently, even though your flight…
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Lessons in Flight and Falling: A Midlife Mountain Biker’s Tale
There comes a time in every man’s life when he must accept the simple, horrible truth: he is no longer twenty and realises that the mountain is no longer a metaphor—but an obstacle. Before I hung up my mountain biking gloves and retired to the smooth, civilized tarmac of road cycling, where the road, for…
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What the Rain Brings
It’s raining. The kind of rain that doesn’t just show up, it settles in like it’s unpacking for a long stay. Looking at those clouds right now, I’d say they’ve paid the rent and brought a suitcase full of gloom. My little dog—wise soul that he is—is curled up in the corner, taking one look…
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Georgie the Conqueror (or How 20 Pounds Can Run Your Whole Day)
It’s 6:03 in the morning. Not 6:00. Not 6:05. Six. Oh. Three. This is not a time any sane human should be alive, let alone functioning. And yet, like clockwork, a small, fuzzy assassin—codename: Georgie—initiates his first strike. A gentle tap on the arm. Soft. Innocent. Like a well-mannered English butler waking you with a…
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The Hunters Return: A Memorial Day Reflection
America is having a bit of trouble with her image these days. Like a teenager whose going through some changes — hormones swirling, emotions swinging wild like a kite on a particularly windy day. She’s not bad, mind you, in a phase. Just confused, maybe. Awkward. Kicking out at the world, not because she’s cruel…
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A Jubilee, a Corr, and a Cold Goodbye
February 2017, London. Cold, damp, and everything was wrapped in that stubborn, bone-chilling English gray. It was the sort of chill that could freeze tea right in the kettle. So naturally, I thought, “What better time for a nostalgia walk?” There I was, hoofing it down the Mall, past Buckingham Palace, when I realized the…
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On My Way to Houston
By A Guy Who Just Wanted a Quiet Flight and Maybe a Hug It’s been a month since I saw my girlfriend. We live apart—she’s in Houston, that vast, sprawling circus of freeways, mad drivers, and more concrete bridges than sense. I live in Richmond, Virginia, which, if you read my last bit of rambling,…
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The Wild, the Weird, and the Wonderfully West Virginian
January 2013. I rolled into Lewisburg, West Virginia, at precisely 8 PM after a long but admittedly beautiful drive from Pennsylvania. It was the kind of drive that makes you feel like you’re in an advert for winter tires—curving roads, mountains, light snow, and just enough loneliness to feel dramatic but not suicidal. First impressions?…
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The Thin Blue Line
The police. Yes, I know. They’ve had a bit of a PR disaster lately, haven’t they? A few bad apples, and suddenly the whole force is treated like they’ve been plucked straight out of a gangster movie. The whole institution’s been shoved into the same moral trash can. And of course, as if summoned by…
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The Entitlement Epidemic
Entitlement. It’s like that weird bit of mold that appears in the corner of your fridge. One minute, everything’s fine, and the next, it’s taken over the cheese, the yogurt, and possibly the entire kitchen. Somewhere along the line, society decided that rules were just “suggestions,” and that the universe owes everyone a favor. And…
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Nature, Noise, and Nostalgia: A Walk Through Deep Run Park
You ever take a walk just for the sake of walking? No destination, no ticking clock, just you and the great wide somewhere? That’s how my mornings usually start at Deep Run Park, with my little four-legged philosopher buddy. He’s got this whole meditation thing down—sniffing at every tree like he’s deciphering ancient scrolls, leaving…
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