I am so all about the post-breakfast power nap. Here’s the routine: 5am wakeup bell, zazen, kinhin, zazen, service, cleanup, breakfast, NAP! The nap can be up to twenty minutes, or as few as seven or ten if I’m in a rush. But that’s all—no longer, or else I feel groggy and am back to …

Thanksgiving dinner was potatoes, omelet, and kale. Potatoes rough and fragrant from the now-sleeping beds, boiled, fried in butter, with pepper and salt. Eggs gathered in a basket from the United Nations of chickens, green and tan, blue and pink, freckled, and brown. Folded with onions braided onto a string. A few cherry tomatoes, wet …

A woman in a red bikini drifts toward the sandbar on a grey inflatable dinghy. The lagoon at low tide a playland of clam-diggers, happy dogs, and children with float toys. Bikini lady is shrieking at the top of her lungs: noooooo!!! I’m SCARED!  help me help me help me! Laughter mixed with shrill mock-terror. …

So I just got back from this wonderful road trip with my, uh, guyfriend. To visit his mom. In California. I say this, and people give me this peculiar piercing look. Then they ask me, is it serious?  And I am flummoxed. I mean, what is serious? Liver cancer is serious. Babies are serious. Anything …