Whit's End

Stuff on the Internet

[whithonea]

A Fear of Dogs and Those Who Love Them

A Fear of Dogs and Those Who Love Them

“It came with the wind through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild and menacing.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles The sidewalk is roughly three feet wide, a yard of concrete separating gardens from curbsides and then returning…

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[whithonea]

Of Sportsmanship and Siblings

Of Sportsmanship and Siblings

Two roads diverged in yellowed wood, and being lone traveler long I stood. Except the roads were actually choices because everything is a metaphor and the yellowed wood was more like a drought-ridden park. My wife was on her bike somewhere in the distance and I was walking toward her. The part about the choices was spot on though—Robert Frost knew his stuff. The first option was a cowlicked boy…

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[whithonea]

Cursing Kids and the Parents Who Love Them

Cursing Kids and the Parents Who Love Them

Their mouths are as sweet as all of the candy we ever let them eat and forever teetering upon the cusp of gap-toothed smiles. Despite the screams, the tantrums, the assorted words of spite and hate that they may have spewed, theirs are lips pursed tightly around the notion of innocence. No lack of dental hygiene can change that. No late night excursions, regardless of their resemblance to an…

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[whithonea]

The Sound of Music, More or Less

The Sound of Music, More or Less

If the hills are alive they are awfully quiet. I haven’t heard a sound, let alone anything close to boulders breathing or mountainous music in way too many months. Apparently the surest way to get a child to quit their constant strumming, banging, and spit-laden blowing of anything remotely resembling an instrument is to start paying for lessons. Suddenly a house echoing with motion is stoic and…

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[whithonea]

Choosing Our Confessions

We were playing the alphabet game as one does on road trips far too long, except our ride home from the beach was perhaps too quick and far too familiar—sometimes one needs a reason to look out the same windows again and again, especially when the ocean is behind you and you are covered in sand. The game was a tie between my son and the radio. My youngest boy was six at the time, and he had been…

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[whithonea]

Dead Tooth Fairy Flying

Dead Tooth Fairy Flying

The tooth fairy is dead. Those were the first words that came to mind. After all, our family has known more than our share of death over the past few years, and what was one more? Besides, it’s not like the boys knew the tooth fairy personally. The tooth fairy was just some stranger that broke into houses in the middle of the night. It was bound to happen, and frankly, I’m surprised that the jig…

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[whithonea]

So Are the Sick Days of Our Lives

So Are the Sick Days of Our Lives

The days all start the same. My wife is the first one up, and she isn’t quiet about it. Then the household menagerie begins their matinee performance: The cats run and scratch and meow and jump and bounce and run some more. The dogs spin their heads in time to the frisky felines, their necks adorned with tags of domestically jingling like a band of sleigh bells turned to 11. By that point my wife…

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[whithonea]

Been Caught Stealing

To be fair, his brother had picked it up first, but he took it eagerly and made it his own. It was small and round, fluffy with a funny face and it fit perfect in the tender palm of a quiet boy that craved the constant comfort of his hands always moving. It was obvious that it didn’t belong there, brushed to the sidelines of the mall’s busy walkway, unnoticed and perhaps unwanted. It was the…

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[whithonea]

The Weirdest Kid

He was waiting where he always waited, beneath the shifting shade of oak trees, spread thin upon the warm grass in a superhero t-shirt damp with the sweat of spring and backpack. The brim of his hat lay low across his face as if the only thing he expected was an afternoon nap. I pulled to the curb and my son rose to meet me. A dark cloud followed him. We put it in the backseat. “The kids at lunch…

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[whithonea]

Goodbye #9

“Why is it so peaceful?” he asked through the irony. I ignored him hoping he would take the hint. “Why is it so peaceful?” he asked again. “I thought we were running late.” It was his first week of being nine, and everything, apparently was different. For starters, the walk to school was now filled with added concerns and a sudden awareness of time. “Oh, there’s one,” he said as a car appeared…

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[whithonea]

Forever is the Focus of a Moment

Forever is the Focus of a Moment

It was around 4 a.m. when I first realized that my bedside water glass was also the cat bowl. This, despite the fact that there are two cups designated as feline fountains not 10 feet away, not to mention an open toilet that doubles up in a pinch. No, the cat chose my glass, joining us forever at the fur-lined lip, and I suddenly understood my constant desire to nap in the sunlight. Things like…

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[thedaddycomplex]

We came for the street art, but stayed for the album cover pose. #TheNewKia

[whithonea]

Chores in the Wild

Chores in the Wild

The afternoon was quiet. The clouds gathered like cotton in the fields outside my window, and my mind walked each row picking memories by hand before losing them again beneath the mist. Somewhere downstairs the boys were planting memories of their own and scattering them without caution or regard for the blossom. The day had escaped between trips to school and back again. There had been errands…

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[whithonea]

"Are you one of the slow talking rappers, or one of the fast talking rappers?"

This is painfully funny.

[lizclimo]

have a great weekend, guys!

[whithonea]

Happier by the Dozen

Eleven ended in an easy moment, wrapped in an unworn sweatshirt beneath a window of stars, gently swaying to the rhythm of soft music against a hard highway, and the last scream of roller coasters still warm upon his breath. When he awoke there was 12 where the past used to be, a kite tethered to childhood and teen years on the wind. He had another bag of memories, freshly pressed and hastily…

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[whithonea]

Blocking Out the Scenery Breaking My Mind

Blocking Out the Scenery Breaking My Mind

I was sitting at the stoplight trying to block the sounds of Twista from the car next to me by cranking the David Gray on my stereo. It was futile. My oldest son was in the car seat behind me. We had just completed a morning of male-bonding which consisted of getting my pants hemmed, buying a couple pair of new shoes for his first day of kindergarten on Monday (brown high-top Converse and plaid…

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