Before I begin, I would just like to say that I’m not proud of most of the things that I’ve done. I’ve always put myself into certain situations without any regard for the consequences. My story isn’t as intense as some others might be, who have written their memoirs dedicated to their intense drug use or life as a homeless person. I’ve never been addicted to any certain drug, unless attention from men suddenly comes in a...

The prompt for this essay was, "Using a quote from a favorite book as a leaping off point, describe a significant event in your life and how it affected your values." **************************** “Modern science has been a voyage into the unknown, with a lesson in humility waiting at every stop. Many passengers would rather have stayed home.” -- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot To be humbled – to have our greatest strengths and...

The lights dim and the concert hall goes almost completely dark. A guitar can be heard playing a rhythm. The lights get a little brighter and Cristina Scabbia looks around at the crowd. “Are you all ready to be Spellbound?!” she asks rhetorically.As soon as she says that, the crowd erupts. The guitar comes in louder and then the drums. A heavy bass line is felt and Andrea Ferro sings the opening lines of the song. The cro...

Abyss “When you gaze into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you” -Friedrich Nietzsche According to Merriam -Webster’s English Dictionary, depression is defined as, “ A psycho neurotic or psychotic disorder marked especially by sadness... inactivity, ... feelings of dejection and hopelessness... sometimes suicidal tendencies.” Depression is also defined as “a sinking surface...hollow space” That’s exactly how my mind fel...

Is this it? Just existing amongst jealousy? Honestly- all it takes is a look around and it is instantaneously enough to be sickened... So many beautiful women that will be defined by the pessimistic masculine exterior, and it subverts my vision of beauty- and plunges me into the grotty dynamics of this insignificant world that does in fact turn without our self indulged necessities.The world evaporates and is condensed in...

Inspiration is twisted… I now have inspiration.Nicola from Almagretta. I had no idea Valetta had such a sound, almost as if she had been dumb a year and a half lingering in my room & once dragged to Italy. But tonight she blossomed… in another man’s hands. Nicola from Almagretta. His fingers caressed her and he knew what he was doing, me being the bitter man I am watched in vain. Quite like a man watching his wife get nai...

When I was younger, my family and I would go camping almost every year- and I don't mean just me, my brother and my parents either. We brought two of my four cousins along with us when they could make it over from Wyoming. One year, we took a different vehicle than every other time, so we didn't have room for my eldest cousin in any of the seats. He ended up in the trunk. At first, he was quite okay with it, nice and comf...

Well I am back online after a couple of months off, just waiting and now enjoying all that time I can get with my baby. My baby was born on October 16, sweetest day, after long hours of waiting and trying to help my wife with her agonising pain. I'm sure some moms reading this know what I'm talking about. It was an amazing experience once she was going into labor. The doctors all said that my baby was going to be born at...

It was the night before New Year's Eve 2011... For weeks there had been a “Coming Soon” sign up on the blank billboard outside of my apartment building. Over the years, it had become a ritual for a few of the residents to sit out on the rooftop every Friday night and unwind after a long week. The rooftop of the building on Black Velvet Boulevard was the place you could come to if you wanted to bemoan your fate, plan your...

Mom’s birthday was August 24. On August 25, she started baking for Christmas. The first thing on her agenda was the fruitcake, because it was best if it aged three or four months. In September, she started baking cookies. She made several dozen Pfeffernouse, followed by several dozen Springerle cookies. Then, there’d come a short hiatus from making Christmas food, to prepare for Thanksgiving dinner. After Thanksgiving, sh...

While there are many disturbing memories of Vietnam, there is one surprisingly excellent memory - Christmas morning. The confusion, laughter, and joy that I created for eleven very homesick young men remains to this day my most memorable Christmas. In December, 1967, I was stationed at DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam. I was 22. Since I had been in the Air Force for over three years, I was both older and of higher rank than...

It was the last day of school. We must have had band or orchestra practice that day, ‘cause after classes were out, I went to the band room to get my flute. That’s when Mr. Daniel (the band director) collared me, and hauled me into his office. “Close the door,” he said. Like any eighth grader, my first thought was, Oh mercy! What did I do? My second was I didn’t do it! Followed quickly with, maybe if it tell him I had to,...

I graduated from college in 1975 with a Bachelor of Science in Geography. Because I had changed my major course of studies along the line, I also had “under my belt”, twenty one credit hours in history, twenty one credit hours in geology, and several semesters of economics, sociology, psychology, mathematics, chemistry, physics and secondary education. I had also had one paper published in the Maryland Journal of Geologic...

The ice cream curls off the scoop just like the big ones breaking off the coast of Maui. I look inside the curl to see if there’s anyone shooting the pipe. All I see are the tiny speck of vanilla beans. They look like specks of pepper. I wish I knew how to modify photos in the computer. What a great photo that would make; a surfer shooting the pipeline inside the vanilla ice cream, or maybe a snow-boarder, using it as a h...

I arrived home from school, to find my mother carrying an armload of books up the stairs. I put my flute case and music on top of the piano, and carried my bookcase and lunchbox out to the dining room. As I returned to the living room, Mom said to me, “We have to move some books around. You can help. Come upstairs to your father’s and my bedroom, and I’ll tell you which ones to carry down.” I did as I was told, and she ha...