Check out today’s issue in all of it’s glory here.

October is my favorite month. Cooler weather, playoff baseball, memories of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves creeping me ever closer into an axiety disorder. It’s the year 2000 and, while not the jetpack futuretopia I had imagined as a boy, it is the zenith of a certain phase of my life. A manic ascent…

You know those image macros that say “I have no idea what I’m doing”? That’s pretty much how I feel about everything these days. I’d say that this letter is a case in point, but to be honest I know what I’m doing here but have just had other “latest and loudest” gardens to tend.…

Better late than never this week. I’ve made my first soup of the season this evening, a simple puree of boiled cauliflower, cream, chicken stock, salt, pepper and chives. There’s not much to it, but it tastes simple and nourishing and gives me a good excuse to shovel in big chunks of ciabatta. Do you…

We’re experiencing the first cool weekend that forecasts delicious autumn—the kids are in school, football season has started, the gardens are winding down. It is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Thoughts start to turn to homesteading for the coming winter, all marking the often unwanted unfurling of time’s relentless ribbon. Time on my mind, I’ve been…

Not a lot of gas in the tank at the end of this past week. There’s something about losing Robin Williams, and the way it transpired, that seems to have ricocheted through many different circles and touched many of us in different ways. So much has already been said about Williams this week. I’ll only…

What a remarkable week it has been! Yes, I turned forty and, no, the world didn’t end. Instead, life is already opening up all around me like so many of you warned me it would. Thank you for all the well wishes and notes. I truly feel like the best is yet to come. Part…

I suppose we all feel this way to some extent as we get older, but birthdays have pretty much always struck me as bittersweet. Another year gone, another year older…but hey! A “holiday” all about me! Birthdays: New Year’s for narcissists. Beginning in July and marching steadily through August, “birthday season” for our family counted…

Hi, I’m starting things this week with a quick expression of gratitude. There’s a “milestone” birthday coming up fast and, as you’ve probably already noticed, it’s got me even more thinky than usual about who I am, where I am, and who’s along for the ride. I’ve been thinking a lot about how lucky I…

Let’s think of this week’s letter as the B-side to last week’s somber reflection on loss. In fact, as Erin McKeown sang on “Slung-Lo,” “I’m turning this B-side around to a de-light.” Newton’s First Law of Motion Three weeks ago I asked my mom what she wanted to do to celebrate her birthday this year…