This was read aloud at the event, so it's not fully written out, but you get the gist. Nov 2, 2025 I’m Jim Cruz -Youll. My husband Brandon and I are here from San Francisco, and humbled to spend this sliver of time with so…

The grandchildren don't visit as often as they did when she lived in the snug brick house on the hill, where bright landscapes sprawled from window ledge to horizon's edge, and none hung, redundant, on pine paneled walls. This modern woman, of self cleaning electric…

August 18, 2011 Gram is hardcore: she does the morning puzzles in ink. The minute I sit down she slides the crossword over to me to finish so she can move on to Jumble. [6:40am]

I must have drafted this in 1985 or 1986 in one fast pass but never published it. It's not my best writing, but it connects me with a moment that I find myself reaching for sometimes when I'm feeling lost. The Grandfather was not an…

Patrick was Chief Photographer at the student newspaper, The BG News, when I tumbled out of high school in tiny Niles, Ohio, and into college at Bowling Green State University in August, 1983. I didn't choose Bowling Green. Bowling Green found me. I had been…

Twelve years ago, “domestic violence” came home dressed like a little boy in a grown-ass man’s body a grown-ass alcoholic little boy a grown-ass drunken alcoholic amphetamine-raging little boy textbook control freak seriously, textbook Not even a boy with the access or privilege of an…

I wrote this for Wendy Ju’s magazine, Ambidextrous, back in 2008. Then some things happened in my life that interfered with my finishing the story for publication. Today I stumbled across the stack of drafts that had accumulated as I worked on a final edit…

Adam and Eve recently visited the Castro. They enjoyed crèmes brûlées from the crème brûlée cart, window-shopped fancy shoes, and grabbed a quick coffee with The Devil. Later, they walked hand-in-hand while touring the Castro’s shops, to the delighted squeals of other tourists (“look! there’s one!”) and the…

April 14, 2012 Summer reading courtesy of a box of free books left 30 feet from my door on a path i seldom walk. I don’t generally believe in omens but I’m counting this one anyway.

March 16, 2012 The Castro is awash in the appreciation and trade of art of every kind, including classic cinematic genres.