I’ve just sent the invoice for three chapters that I wrote for inclusion in a biochemistry textbook. It isn’t a heap of money, but it is the most I’ve ever been paid for writing. It always feels good making money for doing something that I love. Not that it is that common, mind, but nonetheless. [...]
Archive for the ‘Not Max’ Category
Riding a mule and leading a hound
Today is Not Max’s first birthday and I’m stuck in Whyalla, which smells remarkably like industrial solvents, diesel fuel and government money. Not stuck exactly, but on the other side of the state from my family. Story of my life right now. I love my job but she’s a needy mistress this semester, draining my [...]
And you feel so right, but how come you can’t sleep at night?
In the suburbs
I learned to drive
And you told me we’d never survive
Grab your mother’s keys we’re leavin’…
In my younger days, when the stress tide was rising, I used to pop on my favourite record at the time, crank the volume up to maximum and bathe in an anodyne sonic sea. Cheaper than Valium and a [...]
Good morning, how are you?
I’ve been informed that Not Max is six months old today and that I need to write a post commemorating this because I did so for Boy Z. So, well done Not Max. Well done for keeping a smile on your face despite dealing with the negligent parenting that is the lot of the second child. [...]
Music and passion were always the fashion
Not Max, our now five month old son, doesn’t get a lot of face time here at A Free Man. This accurately reflects his position in real life, squarely in the shadow of his older brother. Boy Z walks and talks and runs and throws and hits a cricket ball and thus earns far more [...]
Soon the sleigh was flashing past, right over Marble Bar
I’ve been trying for a few weeks to get a decent picture of both boys for my office. This, seemingly, is an impossible task. I can get photos in which one of them looks good – looking at the camera with a smile of sorts – but none in which they both look good. Typically [...]
So in the end I’d like to say, that I’m a very thankful man
I grew up with distant Grandparents. Not emotionally – they were wonderful when we had a chance to see them – but physically. Our family was nomadic for much of the 70’s, and our wanderings took us far from my parents’ parents. What this meant is that my sister and I saw our grandparents a couple [...]
I bide my time kicking up the sand
There is a possibility that I am becoming obsessed about food. My guest post for The Greenists is about food. Again. Still, I think it is pretty good so you should go and check it out.
The research for this one freaked me out a little bit. I try to trudge through life looking pretty much right [...]
I’m no philosopher. I am no poet.
Nor much of a writer either. I’ve spent a couple of days trying, and failing, to figure out the best way to write about what was a wonderful weekend. I’ve given up. And decided to let my handy little point and shoot, which spent the weekend in my pocket, tell you instead.
Friday:
Boy Z came to ‘work’ with [...]
If I had hands I’d be a writer, if I had brains I’d be a man
This was going to be a different kind of post. I was going to write about how, come the middle of August every year when I was in elementary school, I got bored. How at some point during the dog days, summer ground to a halt and I got excited about going back to school. [...]
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