Our approaching birthdays generated a 75-word novel challenge — Just like the succinct signage in the photo above, less can be more. These three simple words scrawled onto a ripped and dirty scrap of cardboard tell us almost everything we need to know about the person holding this sign. Nothing more needs to be said. On the other hand…

TOK Editorial Board meeting notes (3/6/22) — Conversations between the editors at TOK should be censored, nuked, thrown in jail, and worst of all, ignored. This begins a new series of random convos between a couple of ancient stoners who happen not to give a shit what people think, as long as they keep laughing. Daniel Lee…

It was a while back, but I let it air out for a few months — There once was a limerick war that’s become a sickening bore. This doctor named Michael, in a ne’er-ending cycle, writes poems that people abhor. I can’t write limericks anymore. If I do, they stay in a drawer. Burg challenges friends, makes no amends, because he can’t write and he’s sore. …

Our writers rock! — February has been an interesting, if not exciting, month, on many levels. With the ice sheets collapsing, crazy truckers blockading entire capital cities, European countries being invaded, new variants of our favorite pandemic virus popping up, and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of potentially infected chickens and turkeys being…

and feeling her pain — Post-Soviet years working in Eastern Europe — Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine — my heart was warmed, I was utterly charmed by new friends in Kyiv, didn’t want to leave this proud democracy. Brightly colored façades, love’s bright new theme erased memories, smothered oppressive gray of previous regime. Today…

And how it affects every one of us and our pets. — I thought I was as fed up with BigPharma as I could possibly be, and then this happened—a recent visit to my dermatologist to help with an itchy scalp that was driving me completely nuts. According to Wikipedia, a dermatologist is a specialist medical doctor who manages diseases related to…

Sometimes ya gotta go, even when you’re already on the way out — When my heart doesn’t beat I can peek into the darkness that might follow Just a clue, that’s all I ask. I want to know what’s on the other side but the med tech has other plans, pumps a gallon of fluids into my vein. Oh no. I must pee! Hole…

Is it education? Or brainwashing? — They teach them to fight, build stadiums for sport but where are the parks where they learn to play? They teach them civics, but not civility, history but not truth, war, but not how to make peace They teach them business, profit and loss, but don’t teach them what’s right, what’s good for…

And a breath of fresh air — Sometimes a girl just needs a little oxygen. Today my writing studio seemed cramped and stuffy and not at all conducive to creativity. I rang up my buddy Dawn Jarvela Henthorn to see if she felt the same way, and off we trotted to a delightful walking trail near downtown…