It’s Hallowe’en again, already. October 31. I love this time of year, and hate it. The leaves blow urgently across the roads in mobile piles like lost souls. Beautiful, but an obsessive’s neatnut nightmare. Listen carefully and you’ll hear a distant leaf blower, 24 hours a day. There are more dead squirrels on the roads this month. In the rush to pack away nuts they don’t look both ways. Santa and Satan battle it out in the stores, the pitch forks on the backside of the aisle of nativity scenes. The juxtaposition is delicious. Both holidays are about death, but then everything is, ultimately. I felt compelled to ask a…

It looks like George Bush was wearing a wire during the Presidential Debate. Gotcha!!

I know, your heart leaps to see new text here, right? Mine too. “But why doesn’t he put up a new photo?” Simon has hair now. And is about 2 lb bigger. Jasper’s in school, no longer crying each day en route. Resigned or loving it, we don’t care. I was one of those kids — held onto both folding doors of Bus 93 in Winsloe, bawling. Not sure who it was who kicked me onto that big orange bus to hell. The office is now a rec room, the spare room now an office. I no longer work at home, and in my absence the office has moved above…

My brother Lowell is a Dad. It makes me well up just writing this, I love that guy so much. I’m an uncle! Ryan Thomas Hickox was born this morning at 8AM in Calgary. Sharon needed a cesarian, because the little guy was comfy and sideways in his warm, wet little nest, but mom and baby are doing well. Ryan has a big head (like cousins Jasper and Simon), so he opted to take the alternate exit. We’re just glad he’s here. So beautiful. So much promise, this life. And so lucky to be surrounded by so much love, pure and powerful, undiminished by the miles. Welcome, Ryan!