The Postcard Days
Before flying north for a summer halfway through college, what I knew about Denali National Park was that it was big and remote…
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The Limits of Compassion
In August of 2000, I found myself in a remote rural village in Lesotho. I was working as an AIDS journalist and had traveled to Durban…
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“Lenin Was Half-Jewish and So Can You”
My grandfather, Israel, always claimed it was my doing. I was nineteen and I was getting restless.
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Testimony
Because of the fog, no one can enter San Quentin. Inmates must remain in their cells to be counted. We must remain on the outside.
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The Fire Rises
My father was an Eagle Scout when being an Eagle Scout meant something. When I was young, he taught me the proper way to build a campfire…
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Inversion
My father carved for my mother. He turned blocks of wood into mini-carousel horses. These horses were the most delicate things I’d ever seen a man make…
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The Ism and the Alcohol
A year and a half ago, I published my first essay on addiction. You’d think having gotten sober at age seventeen would have been fodder…
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Our Own Ocean
During the longer days of our cross-country road trip I slept in the car in the early afternoon, dozing in the passenger seat as Cam’s Toyota…
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My Own Mexican Revolution
I was walking back from the grocery store, loaded down with bags, when a man came up the sidewalk. I looked down and away.
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On Running Again
Last Saturday, the first almost-warm day of the year, I went for a run along the river, into town, through the park – a four mile loop in perfect, breezy, sunny conditions.
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The Storm and the Beast
The morning before the typhoon hit, I sat down for a Skype date with my parents: my morning coffee and their evening wine…
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A Return to Limantour
The sublet in Berkeley was our last resort. My father and I had been kicked out of the bottom floor of a house in Sausalito for breaking…
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