Critias

I still remember parts of it like it was just last week.

I remember that the only reason -- the only reason -- I knew it wasn't a joke was that WEBN, my local rock station, had interrupted Lynyrd Skynyrd with an announcement about a plane hitting the first tower. If it had "interrupted" some disc jockey banter or been in the middle of a string of commercials, I might've just thought it was a gimmick ad for a suspense movie.

I assumed, like so many others,...

Sorry I've been so crazy quiet lately -- Glocktalk is still snug and safe in my browser's favorites list, I promise! -- but I've just been keeping busy with about a million other things.

Grad school is trucking along, I'm seven classes deep and still desperately hangin' onto my 4.0 gpa. One professor at a time, I keep trickin' these folks into thinking I know what I'm doing. I just started earlier this week as the departmental Graduate Assistant, which is basically...

Before I start, let there be no misunderstanding; what happened to the people of Arizona over the weekend was an unmitigated tragedy. A horrible person did a horrible thing, and I feel for every single person whose life was ended, altered, and disrupted by this event. I disagree with some of those people politically, but I wished them no ill personally.

That little girl, in particular, is a heartbreaker.

The shooting was monstrous, the shooter is a monster, and...

Hope everyone's been having a good last couple of weeks, with their candle lighting, tree decorating, gift giving, dreidel spinning, or whatever else it is you've decided to do this winter (snow shoveling for many, I'm sure).

Mrs. Crit and I got our "big" gifts early (I got that Mossberg I talked about, she got a Dyson Animal Ball vacuum cleaner), because part of why we were buying 'em was to spend money on practical stuff for our home, as much as stuff for each other. ...

Every now and then, I get distracted by stuff. Some thought flutters in between my ears and then sticks there, and when I'm supposed to be doing something else -- reading, writing, even settling in to watch tv -- I mull a thought over, smooth the rough edges like a clam with a piece of sand, and hope that eventually I get a pearl. Or, uhh, some other appropriate metaphor that combines a nagging sensation with a piece of jewelry?

Truth is, it's how I do my best writing. Not my...