Life

Run Heather Run

In Life on 29 June 2008 with no comments

My darling wife is running a half marathon in October to help raise money for charity. She’s looking for sponsors and giving a pair of her lovely Polaroid diptychs to anyone who donates over $100. Can you help? Donate now!

On Permanence and Scars of Choice

In Life, Stories, Tattoos on 25 June 2008 with 18 comments

The thing that gives me pause about getting a tattoo is all the awful things I would have gotten tattoos of earlier in life.
Think of photos of yourself in the 80s. Imagine if, somehow, that powder blue Don Johnson suit you loved, the one you wore with a white t-shirt and the sleeves rolled [...]

Not Just One Thing

In Life on 21 May 2008 with 12 comments

Michael Craig gets it.
The reason for my interest has not been due to some gloriously fabricated business facade, but because they have been so downright authentic in sharing themselves and their humanity.
Michael hit on something I’ve long thought about but never written about here. It’s hard to put into words, but it goes something [...]

How Pixish Happened

In Business, Life, Pixish, Stories on 10 February 2008 with 11 comments

With some stories, it’s hard to know where to begin. I could start with my obsession with photography and magazines that goes back to when I was a kid. Or I could talk about running a newspaper in college and working at HotWired in the ’90s. Or when I started a photography magazine and a [...]

A Collection of Last Straws

In Life, San Francisco on 31 January 2008 with 17 comments

I love our neighborhood. I loved this building. I crash-landed here at a moment of huge personal change. But that was eight years ago. Since then, a lot has changed. I met Heather and we moved in together on the top floor. We got married.
But not all of it was good. I kept a [...]

Happiness Math: Yesands vs Nobuts

In Communication, Emotions, Life on 6 January 2008 with 10 comments

It took me 34 years to learn it, but I’ve finally figured out a basic mathematical principle that predicts my happiness in life. Here it is:
Take the number of times you hear “yes, and” in a day. Then take the number of times you hear “no, but” in the day. Now subtract the nobuts from [...]

NaBloPoMo Q&A 8: Never Tell a Story Like It’s Not About You

In Interviews, Life, NaBloPoMo, Q&A, Stories, Writing on 25 November 2007 with 3 comments

Louise asked:
I was wondering if you have ever regretted your transparency on the web. Has it worked as a negative or positive influence?
I was 23 years old the first time it happened. It was two hours into 1996. And I was bummed out. So I wrote down how I felt, posted it to my website, [...]

All of This Has a Perfectly Reasonable Explanation, Part 4

In AOTHAPRE, Life, Stories, Travel on 14 November 2007 with 11 comments

Continued from yesterday.
Heather looked at me with a mix of exasperation and unblinking disbelief. But she is my spouse, my love, my dear partner, and she knows that sometimes, when you can’t get around a bad idea, the only option is to power right through it.
We switched seats and suddenly I was white knuckling our [...]

All of This Has a Perfectly Reasonable Explanation, Part 3

In AOTHAPRE, Life, Stories, Travel on 13 November 2007 with 1 comment

Continued from yesterday.
I’m almost to the explanation now.
Next thing I know, it’s 6am and Heather is poking me to get moving. We’ve gotta leave the house in an hour. Then suddenly it’s 6:30 and we’ve got a half hour. I stumble into the shower and try to wake up.
I cram the last few things [...]

All of This Has a Perfectly Reasonable Explanation, Part 2

In AOTHAPRE, Life, Stories, Travel on 12 November 2007 with 2 comments

Continued from yesterday.
I’m explaining. Just hang with me.
The second thing you should know is that I’m kind of a nervous flier. It’s crazy, given how much travel I’ve been doing lately, but I can’t help it. The night before a big trip, I can almost never sleep.
I wasn’t always like this. When I was [...]