dansolomon's profile

'I'm here for a computer,' the lady whose name I never will get around to learning says to me when I ask her, by way of introduction, why she's standing in a line outside a Best Buy location at two-thirty in the morning on a weeknight. My toes haven't gone numb yet, but we've only been here for five minutes. There's a couple whose names I won't get either, even though we'll lie and cheat and threaten fights with strangers together in a few hours. They say to her 'us too,' and, with a smile, '...

The field used to be an anti-aircraft battery during the blitz of World War II. When the war ended, it was grassed over for use as an athletics field, complete with a running track on the outside. They lay down eighteen inches of soil and sodded it over, which means that during a rainy period it's prone to flooding – they have to drain it, disturbing the ducks who come over from the man-made lake by the public toilets. During a hot, dry spell, the field becomes hard, like concrete, and the pl...

This is the story of how someone named Donutman changed my life forever, and why I'm not embarrassed of it, even though I was embarrassed of him when I first met him and for the next several months after that, almost the whole time I knew him, even the first few weeks after he changed my life and helped me become the person that I am now. I have never thanked Donutman, but I know that he never wanted or expected thanks, because none of us did. It was one of the things that tied us all togethe...

It wasn't a hero he sought. Heroes were just men who hadn't been killed yet. He'd had heroes before and he'd read the reports in the pamphlets (back when he felt it worth the risk to maintain an interest in such things) about their deaths. A hero was someone who led only to disappointment. He was no longer interested in seeing men attempt the impossible, fail, suffer, and die. He considered this wisdom. “Papa, is it wisdom to believe that no one will ever create a finer world?” His son, proud...

1. while new orleans struggles still to get its face above water- while chicago holds in the hope that it can avoid another fire- while new york hides its skyscrapers every time an airplane circles overhead- while san francisco apologizes again for suggesting that queers could be in love- while portland buckles under the weight of all those guitars playing hollow notes- while seattle gazes down from a hill built upon computer parts- while houston struggles to see sunlight from behind the high...