I promise I've been up to stuff

Every time I check in on this website I’m struck by how good of an idea it was, then disappointed but not surprised by my utter lack of engagement for the last two years.

Not only did Halisia and I continue to publish editions of Brine, we rounded out a four-season year with a gorgeous full-color issue. (Check out the website, because it still exists and it’s still pretty. https://www.brinethezine.com/)

We haven’t done a fifth issue because I moved to Minneapolis when I got into the MFA program at the University of Minnesota for creative nonfiction. My partner, dog and I moved in with some other people from the program in a big old house near the Minneapolis Institute of Art. I spend most of my time feeling oddly displaced and worried. I write a lot, but publish less than ever. It feels strange.

But I did manage to get a thing published with an online literary magazine, Joyland.

“Honestly is Bragging When You’re Me: A Portrait of a Bitcoin Millionaire” from Joyland Magazine

. . . sometimes it’s that Randon I still come looking for. Even though the house with the alley where he’d pick me up, the car he drove to do it, the boyfriend I complained about – all of that is gone, I still look for his lime green vaporizer and the plastic tub of drugs with the warning written in Sharpie: Don’t let Tess do Salvia.

I’m constantly embarrassed by the things that preoccupy me. Why, exactly, am I still worried about stuff that happened fifteen years ago? Will I ever move on? Maybe not. Probably not. So, that’s where you get an entire essay about my friend Randon, who I think is cool.