Rough Drafts

The Institute by Stephen King My rating: 3 of 5 stars “The Institute” is a dark vision of psychic power and how it could be abused by a shadowy organization that transcends any one government — people who believe they are doing massive good for the world while actually inflicting tremendous evil on

A Zen monastery isn’t the kind of destination you’d typically think of taking the family on vacation, but that’s what we did this summer. I got up very early one morning in late June, shoveled the 18 year old and the 12 year old into the car, along with some basic camping gear, and drove […]

The dogs have fleas. The cat keeps pooping on the kitchen floor. The house is of course a mess, and my daughter is graduating from high school tomorrow — assuming she got rid of that F in English.  Meanwhile, my wife is recovering from her 2nd eye surgery in a month, after two months of […]

I suppose it’s time to give my readers fair warning: After 19 years this blog, and the Tinyletter based upon it, have moved in a more eclectic direction. If you want to unfollow me now, I won’t take it personally. But I’d love it if you stayed along for the ride.

One Saturday in July I went to B Street Books with the 11-year-old to hear the author John Muir Laws talk about his field guide to Sierra Nevada wildlife and his approach to keeping a nature journal.

I was on the third leg of the Dolphin Club’s Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon, and so far that morning I’d already swum from Alcatraz to Aquatic Park (58 minutes), bike to Mill Valley (about an hour), and run as far as Muir Woods. I figured I needed to conserve energy and take the fastest route.

The 17 y.o. came to me this morning full of outrage about something one of my friends had posted on Facebook. Here’s what I told her: That outrage you’re feeling? That’s what Facebook is designed to produce. What my friend posted was just her venting. People do that, among friends, after bad experie

I was under the weather the entire first week of July, so I spent July 4 in bed, reading this book by Mitch Horowitz. Published in 2009, Occult America is an entertaining survey of a variety of “occult” religious trends that blossomed over three centuries of American history. Horowitz starts his acc

According to the Marathon Swimmers Federation, the minimum distance to qualify a swim as a “marathon swim” is 10 kilometers. By that definition, I guess I’m now a marathon swimmer. Yesterday I joined about 20 others in a 10km (6.2 mile) swim from the Capitola pier to the Santa Cruz pier, by way of a

It’s Spring, since yesterday, and I’m swimming again. The familiar soreness of the arm and shoulder muscles, the cup of the middle ear sometimes retaining water until midmorning, the occasional feelings of wavelike or boatlike “floating” when I’m at my desk, working, hours after emerging from the wa

I was reluctant at first: A friend had taken the ModPo poetry course — twice — and she’s now pursuing an MFA at Columbia, living in a 4th-floor walkup while her wife remains here in San Francisco. I don’t need that kind of hassle in my life. Eventually the draw became irresistible, thanks to my frie

To sum up: there is a lot of research showing that Facebook makes people feel like shit. So maybe, one day, people will stop using it. John Lanchester’s long essay about Facebook in the London Review of Books has been getting shared a lot in my circles; Wired editor in chief Nicholas Thompson called