Yesterday a rising column of clouds was the last thing to catch the sunlight and with the rosy head of clouds leaning grandly into the wind, I thought I was watching the glowing masthead of some solitary ship plowing out from the obscurity of the dusk.

A desert quail’s upright carriage and feather headdress lend him an air of solemn pomposity, and even when his timid heart fails him, as all timid hearts must, he runs as if one were merely strutting away from danger at double-speed.

At the foot of the hill is a mossy swale where cattails and wild thistle grow. In the wet season, the swale is a bubbling brook, and in the dry season moisture crawls slowly beneath its sand. In the summer the wild thistle blooms turn to wind puffs, and they float up and down the hills like desert sprites.

(that first one needs work still)

I am a catholic-raised Muslim, Chinese American (3rd-5th generation), Arabic translator, writer of fiction, who is studying to be an engineer, and who has lived for a significant amount of time in the Middle East.

For sure I have an FBI file. and it just says "WTF?"

My life’s ambitions:
Publish several novels or collections of short stories (on themes I think are of pressing importance)
Win either the Pulitzer, national book, or national book critics’ circle awards
Get a phd in something useful and use it.
Marry a beautiful, eccentric, compassionate, vivacious woman.
Raise children who confound me.


Pray to God

A good life is a drawer full of old Birthday and Christmas cards.

I always check the news first thing in the morning before stepping out of my house, cause if the headlines read "End of World is Near", I can be like Ha! Well, screw going to school then

family quotes from the Gottschalks close out sale:
"Wow, free hangers!"
"This fur coat is $800.... but it used to be $5000!"
"How much do you think they're selling this child for?"
"Manequins!"

"We're like scavengers picking over a carcass."
"Aw, I thought everything would be like 99 cents"
"I wanna buy a fixture! Mom, can I buy this rolling clothes hanger? It's only $2.50."

When I was a boy there was a stream in a mountain valley where we used to play. Stones of many colors lined the streambed. They were rounded smooth like dinosaur eggs, and we pulled them from the clear waters to build childish dams and levees in the current. I will always remember the knife cold of the snow fed waters, the grains of sand between my toes, the pines that stood like sentinels on the ridges, and the sound of my mother's voice in the dusk, calling us back from play.

(fictionalized childhood memory based on Forest Falls)