Tastes like being poor and small and popsicles in the summer

I am working harder and happier than I ever have. I think I'm still a year away from producing something really good, but every day I wake up excited to try, to push toward some eventual good piece. I've been thinking a lot about the pieces that inform who I am as a journalist. I'll never produce anything as good as these, but they are what I'm aiming to make. That is, they tell the story I want to tell in the ways I wish I could.

Jay-z - "99 Problems"
Matt Eich - Sin and Salvation in Baptist Town
Neko Case - "Red Bells"
Katherine Boo - The Marriage Cure
Walt Harrington - A Narrow World Made Wide
Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run
Bombay Beach
50 Cent - Hate it Or Love It
Radio Diaries - Claressa Shields
Natasha Tretheway - Native Guard

Haters going down for the count

Pictures from the AU / Starfucker / Girl Talk concert Saturday night. My feet still hurt even though I was wearing my orthopedics. We arrived early to be near the front, but the rowdy young crowd went a few steps too far with me (one boy actively shoved me), at which point we declared ourselves to old to be close then retreated to the back.

And then you take off, your name aloft

All my lies are always wishes

I toss and turn, you understand. Then we learn to synchronize, tirade provoke and inside jokes.

Amanda and I are about to start our second-annual "Needful Things" project. I've been thinking back to a year ago when we first started the text-picture conversation, when we were still fresh off the boat from Orcas Island:

But when I turn up the tone

More photos from the "Trouble" shoot.

He reached an altitude of 16,000 feet, and then he landed

More scenes from the video project I shot with Ryan based on Matthew Dickman's poem "Trouble."