So it goes...

Today marks the official release of my poetry chapbook On a Road   by Unsolicited Press .  It was a release planned around this date, as it marks the 49th anniversary of the death of Jack Kerouac, the beat generation author of the classic book, On the Road . The chapbook was written stylistically in part to pay homage to On the Road, but also because it recounts a trip that reminded me of the book. As I've mentioned before, the chapbook is a series of poems that chronicles a road trip two buddies and I took from Minnesota to California in a rental car in 1984. It was a long strange trip with the destination being a friend's house in suburban Los Angeles. Jack Kerouac, 3/12/1922 – 10/21/1969 The description of the book explains that it is the story of youths heading west to see what "life in fast lane" was all about. What we discovered was that our Midwestern practicality and sensibilities were not cut out for life in Cali. We came back to Minnesota with great ...

I've been reading this book Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist for the past week or so. It is a great book about dealing with adversity and relishing in the good times. The book leans a bit on the feminine side which makes me a little uncomfortable at times. :-) But once you get past that part of it and see what the underlying messages are, it's really quite good. What I like about her books (I've read Cold Tangerines as well) is that they're about her imperfections and resonate with my own experience as well. She talks about a messy house and all the stresses of daily life and how that she doesn't always react to life in a perfectly Christian way. There are times where, despite knowing that God is there and loves her, she doesn't always feel worthy of everything he's given her to care for. So in this period of preparing for the upcoming stresses of the holidays, it fits quite well into my situation. We've got family coming for Thanksgiving, and then in ...