Blog
Asking questions can lead you to new places. Writing helps bring you to answers. And more questions.
Here, I’ve collected writings on a number of topics. Sometimes they’ve been published elsewhere, and other times they’re just for this blog.
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Stephanie and I had a good time watching the super moon eclipse last night. Here’s the best photo I could get with my camera and tripod. Happy Apocalypse, everyone!
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People back home always ask me, “How’s Minnesota?” It’s great, I tell them. The weather is nice (for now) and warm (also, for now) and the sky is clear (you get the picture). My classes are great, and I sometimes wonder how I got so lucky. Some days while my wife works, I sit and…
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“When are you going to write a song about me?” Stephanie asked me this question often when we first started dating. And rightly so. I’d written songs about girls before—and songs about books and songs about songs—so it made sense I would write one about the woman I’d one day marry. But I stopped writing…
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Stephen Colbert, the difference maker
The closer the Report got to the end, the louder I chanted at the beginning of each episode: “Stephen! Stephen! Stephen! Stephen! Stephen! Stephen! Stephen!” If I would never get to see Colbert live, I might as well pretend. I got on the train late. I didn’t start watching Colbert until 2010, but once I started, there was no stopping me. As…
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Insert Theme Music Here
Sitting in a radio booth with two coworkers, they asked me, “What kind of music do you like?” I mumbled a response about Indie music. But the strangeness of that question hit me, probably for the first time. I like a lot of kinds of music at different times, in different settings, for different reasons.…
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The things I carried
I collect post cards. It’s not particularly original, but collecting souvenirs can hardly be considered trailblazing. There’s not a single quality I look for in a post card. Sometimes I genuinely like the photo, sometimes the shape. Sometimes a card is so quaint or corny that I have to put down the 75¢. Gaudy colors,…
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four by four
When I interviewed a professor about the presidential election, he said there was something about those four-year cycles that resonated. Maybe it reminded him of college, the full revolution, he thought out loud. I had a habit of listening to hypotheticals, and it created a lot of unusable time on my voice recorder. This year,…
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Don’t say goodbye—a tale, a toast
“Can you write something for me?” Ben handed back the two save the date cards, which feature an engagement photo he captured for me and my bride to be. As Stephanie and I started thinking about what we’d scrawl on the back, Ben added, “Of course, I won’t read them until I’m back in China.”…
James Figy 