A Day in the Life of Chaos

Day Light Savings Time is horrible on so many levels.   Most of the world doesn’t copy us in our bi-annual American tradition.   Every year the news stories tell us our politicians are trying to end it yet it never comes to pass.   It is a relic of trying to save energy during a World War.   The spring forward, fall back torture continues year after year forcing us to change clocks and deal with interrupted circadian rhythms.   It means I drive home in the dark.   In Alaska growing up it was worse.   In the dark of winter you only had 6 hours of daylight and changing the clocks meant decreasing the daylight window on both ends.   As a child I lived in dark.   I went to school in the dark.   I came home in the dark.   I might catch a glimpse of the sun through a school window if I was lucky.   Summers were the only respite when we lived on the excess light.   These past few years have revealed what is likely the most diabolically evil reality of daylight savings that has proved to be

There are times in life when I feel like society and the social experience is slipping from my grasp.   Like greasy fingers holding a wine glass, I feel like it is sliding from my hands and hurdling to the floor with thunderous crash as a million shards randomly distribute themselves at my feet.   Moments and experiences collide like asteroids and planets.   While the fighter in me should seek to confront life in complicated moments, the monk inside me wants to withdraw to a monastery such that I can spend my days contemplating natural patterns in a stone wall. Mere days after arriving to Portland, Oregon, where the circumstances of life have dictated our new life should be formed, I found a need to plan for the welfare of my child.   This might have been simple had our child been of the two legged variety.   Most certainly a kind coworker might have watched him for a day or two.   Reality however is that these days, our child has four legs, a cold nose and a wagging tail.   While smal

4071 MacINNES St. Anchorage, AK - 1969 Somewhere around my 13th year of life my parents made the determination that they wanted to create their own empire.  Okay, I admit that sounds a bit dramatic.  In truth they decided that they wanted to construct their own house.  My stepfather was a gifted architect and I suppose for him the house we were living in was not his own.  Divorced couples often feel this way.    A second spouse (my stepfather) moving in to the realm of a previous one always feels a bit awkward I suppose.  Or maybe it was the fact that my father who was a creative planner, had simply run out of options to recreate the interior of our old house.  This was despite a number of amazing reconstructions.  He had built wooden shelves ingeniously constructed in the kitchen, basement and my bedroom.  His crowning and in many ways most interesting achievement was the creation of a giant aviary built over the open two story entry way to the house.  The space was an enormous

There is something warm and furry in my house. It has a pink nose and demonic red eyes that provide a counter balance to it's seemingly cute and cuddly nature. It runs in the night like a ghost passing through walls and it searches the dark recesses of it's lair for buried treasure. It has freakish hands that grip like mine as it opens pockets of treasure and reveals the morsel tuck within. As often happens to a parent despite my best effort at strength I is was undermined by a vast array of elements poised against me.   These include the begging eyes of a child and the sympathetic support of a grandfather.  It is enough to make the strongest mountain cave in upon itself.  Grandfather's are in the unique position to support any desires of their beloved grand child while being able to walk away to the tranquility of their own home.  Ahh... what a luxury.  At the same time be careful of what you reap my mind reminds, as the very same child is filling himself with diabolica