“What’s your dad’s name again?” I ask Basil. We were driving down Broadway yesterday in Denver, on our way to run errands. It was a sunny 70 degree afternoon, but with freezing rain and snow forecast for the next several days thereafter, we were focused on getting some things...

“You aren’t going to let some sign tell you what to do, are you?” I would like to etch these words on my mother’s tombstone. I have believed for many years she will never die, and so far she has borne this prophecy out. I have been to the...

I used to wake up screaming. I used to wake up screaming in one of the bedrooms of the Craftsman bungalow I rented with two of my best friends in Pasadena, California. It was always the middle of the night—I can’t imagine waking up screaming when it is daylight...

I cannot say how often I would talk to dead people if I had never seen the show Six Feet Under. But I have seen the show and so the bell cannot be unrung. Let me be clear: I did not see my first episode of Six Feet Under and immediately...

We have officially been in our new place in Denver for about two weeks. The moving truck we hired to cart our stuff from Columbus to Denver is still en route, so we have been living with essential furniture (a bed, some chairs, an amazing leather sectional Basil won...

I was ten years old and on a business trip with my mother in Las Vegas when she took me to the Pasta Pirate at the California Hotel and Casino. Decades before Vegas would shake off dark wood and dimly-lit dining areas to lure millennials with open-concept Cristal-clear 24...

Today is the 4 year anniversary of my first date with Basil. When we were texting about the anniversary yesterday, he wrote to me: “I knew when I met you that you could accomplish anything you want.” When I met Basil, I was not very good at believing in...

“Everybody has a love/hate relationship with their hometown . . . I am Mr. Born to Run. I am Mr. Thunder-fucking-road. I was born to run, not to stay. My home, New Jersey, it’s a death trap. It’s a suicide rap. Listen to the lyrics! I gotta get out,...

I was drinking a Chimay Red and smoking a bright pink Dunhill cigarette on the patio of AZ88, my favorite bar in Scottsdale, when I decided to run my first race. It was a few months after my father had died. I was living in Pasadena, but I had...

“You’ll be back,” Luke said, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Everyone always comes back.” We were sitting outside at Cafe Paraiso on University Boulevard. It was the first week of May in Tuscon, which meant it was easily 90 degrees, even in the afternoon shade of our table’s...