First Step, Next Step

When I was 23, I was living with my wife and infant in a shitty series of triplexes in Pinellas Park, a neighborhood which was filled with people as poor as myself, but which I recall fondly. While none of us had much, we shared camaraderie, music, and food regularly, and treated each other with […]

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Pansy

When I was a child, anytime that I failed to meet a standard of toughness or hard work, my Father had a name for me: Pansy. Can’t keep up with him at hard labor? Pansy. Crying about a wound? Pansy. Feelings hurt? Definitely a pansy. And even as young as 7 or 8, I understood […]

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The Storm

As anyone who’s ever lived on the eastern half of the Gulf of Mexico can tell you, there’s nothing quite as anxiety inducing as an incoming hurricane. That may seem self-obvious to the folks who haven’t lived here, because you’ve seen the countless tracking maps and rain-slickered weather reporters yelling into a mic over the […]

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We Need A Better Class Of Cult

It’s a common joke when anyone gets a little bit popular that they have a cult, or should start one. On social media especially, I’ve often talked about starting a cult with the followers I identify with most. It’s somewhat of a dark joke, given that most of what we know about cults is related […]

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Platform vs. Community

Author’s Note: I’ve been meaning to start back blogging for a while now, and seeing some of the convo today led me to write this. I promise most posts won’t be this dry or cerebral. Someone on BlueSky said recently “Of course things aren’t different here [from Twitter]. This is a platform, not a community.” […]

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