Category: Chapters

The past few years have given many of us, for better or for worse, a chance to ponder our own mortality. The Attack On an unassuming Friday afternoon in late November of 2019, I began to feel weird. I noticed I was anxious and unusually aware of my heartbeat. I chalked it up to a…

1. Sam’s Tuna Mac We had just finished our second day of a three day backpacking trip through the woods of rural Pennsylvania. Too much beef jerky and trail mix for lunch and snacking meant we needed something substantial for dinner, so we began to make several boxes of mac and cheese. It was not…

In 2009, I was away from DC for a total of 17 weeks. I pulled this off by working remotely when possible and squeezing the theoretical maximum utility out of my vacation days. Each biweek required accounting for 80 hours of work, so working 60 hours one week meant taking the second week off required…

“My wife and I are expecting a baby in November.” This sentence came out of my mouth for the first time in the Spring of 2014. Like many phrases that change the world, the full weight of its meaning washed over me in ever increasing waves. “My wife and I . . .” One of…

Poetry and songs have a reflective quality; we find meaning in them based on where we are and what is happening around us. While I’m not sure where I first found it, the following Stephen Crane poem has been the most reflective series of lines I have ever encountered: I saw a man pursuing the…