Part 1 of this story is here

The new girl and the question were unexpected, so it took me a moment to realize what she was asking about, but when I did, I had a moment of panic. 

TROY
Oh. That over there? You saw that?

CAR GIRL
Yes. I was driving home from work and saw the two of you on the corner. I couldn’t figure out what was ...

It feels like a minute since I've had the opportunity to share a good story, so let's make the first post-restoration entry about one of the more unusual things to happen to me since being away. 

In 2021, I spent a week in my hometown, Fort Collins, Colorado. Midway through the week, I had to switch to a new Airbnb spot, so I found myself in a new neighborhood. I quickly noticed it was n...

we were a third of the way into our summer before marty and i got enough of a pause in the whirl to ask one another if we would be taking a family vacation this year. in consulting our finances which could, given eight years of living on one income, be best described as a meager, the answer was no. a few days into this revelation (truly read despondency) i recalled an email i received earlier in t...

when i was young and we lived in colorado my dad had a friend he played music with. his name was jim-bob. jim-bob was every bit as affable as you'd expect from a guy with such a feel-good moniker. the only detail i recall about jim-bob, other than his persistent grin, was his academic career. he was enrolled at colorado state university so long his credits started aging off. the problem was he was...