Blog
My Birth Defect Changed Me: From Innocent to Misfit and Victim to Hero
My mom, dad, and I were all in a patient waiting room in Minneapolis. A small room in an area of the children's hospital. I was cold, wearing nothing but a thin, paper hospital gown. It was the late 80s and I had turned 15 the day before. Half my head was shaved and I...
The Joy of Being a Surfer — One Morning on the Big Island
Nothing compares to riding a wave. One of the greatest joys in my life has been surfing. It’s the most difficult and rewarding thing I ever learned to do. I learned to surf late in life at the age of 25. Because I was living in San Francisco, I taught myself to surf...
If you live well, your life will feel like an incredible novel.
I was talking to my girlfriend, Whitney, recently about writing and a particular period of my life, and I said to her, "I knew right in the middle of that time it would make a great story." That's what living your life well means to me. When you're right in the middle...
Key West Taught Me How to Be a Bartender, a Lover, and a Scoundrel
I learned to bartend from a handsome, pepper-bearded, and self-described “old queen” named Daisy in Key West, Florida when I was 19. It was at a restaurant called Mangoes off Duval Street, and I was the youngest and only straight bartender. During that time, I lived...
Fart Blossom! School Bus Rides of Arctic Dread
The end of the quarter-mile driveway from our farmhouse in the winter was the most desolate place on earth, and I stood there every weekday waiting for the school bus. A little boy in my blue snowmobile suit listening to the wind blow hard against the telephone wires....
Transition isn’t always easy but it’s filled with possibilities.
I sit at the Pontchartrain Lakefront near my home in New Orleans and meditate there often. It reminds me that everything is constantly, beautifully changing. Transitioning from one thing to another is hard and it's scary, but the more we do it, the easier it is. I...
We Thrived in Ruins and Looked for Mermaids on the Aegean Sea
When I was 23, I spent two months traveling throughout Turkey. I was called Indiana Jones during a party of belly dancers on the Black Sea and nearly died of food poisoning on the Syrian border. I was shown secret underground caves in Cappadocia for a bottle of raki...
The Day I Killed 69 Chickens in Alaska
The day I killed and skinned 69 chickens in a ship's graveyard on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula is why I stopped eating birds when I was 18. It was late May and my friend Jeff and I flew from Seattle to Anchorage to “go fishin’”. Jeff was a very smart, 19-year-old poet and...
Your destination is just the start of another journey.
I believe it's very important to find time to reflect on the past and begin to see possibilities for the future. I reached a lot of destinations and embarked on a lot of new journeys since this photo was taken. Each end always meant an overlapping beginning to...
Escape from the Midwest — Two Delinquents, an Iguana, and a Vial of Rocket Fuel
When we left Central Minnesota for Olympia, Washington, it was 5 p.m. the last week of August. I had a vial of Rocket Fuel, a 24-pack of Mountain Dew, and The Doors playing on a battery-powered boombox beside me. Shirtless, with long hair down to the center of my...