It was a mediocre Thursday night in the fair city of Burbank. Scott, Surgeon and myself were in the middle of an intense game on Dominoes at Surgeon’s man pad. Each of us took seven Bones and held them away from the other sneaky eyed hugger muggers around the table.

It was sometime in late August 2000 when we drove off that boat ramp into Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, ready to begin our lives together, legally, as a committed couple.

It should have been the time of our lives.

It happens here, too, at a party among tenured professors. The red wine loosens me up and I carry a small plate with an assortment of delectable cheese slices and crackers of various shapes, through the narrow spaces between chatting groups. But, inevitably, we sit to eat at a circular table too wide to foster easy conversation in the noisy room and after platitudes have been perfunctorily exchanged, the question comes: “So, what do you write about?”

I try to be punk rock about it, and not take anything in the writing process too seriously. Life is probably a complete joke; no one can tell for sure.

I had to laugh at the term given to Republicans who found compromise with Democrats regarding the recent government shutdown. They were coined Rino’s, “Republicans in name only”. The term was used by those sitting further right on the Republican scale to lambaste their fellow conservatives, a sure sign all is not rosy in the Republican garden.

Faster than even I can believe, the affectation becomes my habit, my comfort, my little soldiers marching their way into my memories and persona.  The music I see at shows, the boys I go to Denny’s with, chainsmoking over bottomless cups of coffee before it becomes a social taboo to smoke in restaurants: all of it hopelessly enmeshed.