Heather Welsh Garner

You were always a little kid to me, having watched you grow up, but that didn’t stop me from recognizing what kind of woman my cousin had become: smart-as-a-whip intelligent, quick with a laugh and a smile, a loving mother and the protector of a legacy from your father and grandparents.

And a year ago when I discovered that you were yet another incredible woman in my life with breast cancer, I also learned how resilient, strong and fearless you were.

Things I would like to tell myself when I was 16

State Farm, in my annual car insurance bill, is making me feel like a responsible old man — something my 16 year old self didn’t think would ever be possible.

Footage from Tokyo, earlier today.

I know that highrise buildings are designed specifically to do this… but that doesn’t make it any less freaky.

What’s a few decades?

As I reach my mid 40s, I find myself plagued by, in no specific order:

• Gray hair
• Bags under my eyes
• One or two hairs in my ear
• Heart trouble
• Back trouble
• Andy Rooney eyebrows
• What looks like the beginnings of long droopy earlobes by the time I’m 60

And yet, strangely enough, I still have the ridiculous cowlick in my hair that I had in 1970.

What’s that about?

I don’t even know how to title this one

It seems that the big news today is the execution in Virginia of Teresa Lewis, who used sex and cash to coerce two men into murdering her husband and stepson in order to collect on their life insurance.

Now Hiring: Husband

Single life, in many respects, sucks.

This is how I get a reputation

When walking to the office kitchen today, I saw a little something floating in the air in the big open common space. Upon closer inspection, it was a spider, dangling halfway between ceiling and floor. After scrutinizing it a bit, I went into the kitchenette to make oatmeal.
On my way back to my desk, I stopped to look for it again, but couldn’t find it.
As I wandered around looking at thin air, searching for something in nothing, I realized that someone was looking at me oddly.
Who could blame him?

Physically, but not emotionally

Wanna see an example of how bad ageism is in the gay world?

I am older than both the “mature” guys in this ad. (But as I look younger, I assume they’re lying about their age.)

Tales of Stupidity

On Thursday night, the warnings blared on my dashboard: Tire Pressure Too Low!

Anatomy of an Earthquake

The 4.1 Milpitas earthquake that hit here on Thursday was a small affair — like all quakes, when it first starts you kind of freeze in place and wait to see what happens next. How big will it get? Is there a huge shock coming in a second? How long will it last?

In a mirror, snarkily

You know how you hop on the scale in the morning and you’re all happy and excited that the working out is having some effect, and then you dry your hair and it’s kind of good looking and then you say, man, I could rock some clothes today and look cute and young and hip… and then you go through the closet and try everything on twice and you look tragic and ridiculous?

You know?

Commuting on the precipice

1. The car in front of me was swerving erratically. The reason was obvious: the driver was chatting on the phone, holding it to his ear while he drove. Which, of course, is illegal.
   He continued to swerve, and the next thing I knew he was gone — disappeared from the driver seat. By this time I’d changed lanes and slowed down to avoid the worst.
   Up he popped, he’d bent down for some reason while driving at 70mph on Highway 85. I let him get way ahead of me.
2. The white monster pickup behind me was unhappy with my speed. 70 wasn’t enough, and then I slowed and moved right. He gunned past me, then moved all the way to the left. It was then that I saw it: in the back of the pickup, a large dog, standing. Not in the bed. Standing on the toolchest behind the cab. Standing on the toolchest and stepping way to the left so he could look out around the driver’s side of the cab. On a pickup truck driving, now, about 85mph. The dog’s feet skittered about and my heart pounded. He gingerly turned around and walked to the passenger side. The last I saw before the truck barreled out of sight was the dog bending his neck around the right side of the cab…
   as the truck sped down the left lane. The car pool lane. With only a single passenger.
   Perhaps he counted the dog. For the moment.