I walked the neighborhoodtonight to The Green Room,our neighborhood bar,“serving Durham since Prohibition”in a small square buildingwhose green walls are as infusedwith smoke as it is with stories.Beer and basketball were my menutonight, as others shot pool andplayed table shuffleboard,each of us speaking to the otheras we crisscrossed the roomlike billard balls on green felt.Michael,…

Two unconnected things crossed my path today and I’ve been sitting here for the last half hour thinking about how they are connected. The first came my way through Jimmy, who served as a conduit to connect me to another guy talking about the fiftieth anniversary of graphic designer Gerald Holtom’s creation of the Peace…

Since this is spring break at Duke, the campus restaurant has been closed and I’ve been working back at the restaurant where I started so I could earn my paycheck and also let Chef take her kids to Disney. I’ve loved being back over there. I like the menu (it’s fun to cook), but mostly…

I broke my promise, or at least my practice. I missed writing the last two days, even though my commitment was to write everyday during Lent. The combination of the move, trying to get the phone company to get wifi hooked up at our new home, work, and sheer exhaustion conspired to the point that…

We moved into the house today for real. For the first time in eight months, we don’t have a Pod in our driveway. The new place is stacked full of boxes and furniture several wonderful folks helped us carry in. In a few minutes, I’m driving up to Greensboro to pick up one of my…

The lectionary passage for Sunday is John 11, the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. In these days when the flow of life runs counter to my finding time to write, I chase words like a salmon trying to get upstream. Though the gospel accounts don’t say so, reading it through my eyes…

I’ve only crossed the threshold a half dozen times,sat on a folding chair in the dining room eatingKrispy Kreme doughnuts once and yet it feelsmore like home already than this house we’veoccupied since we came to town last year. Occupied is the right word, like an invadingarmy occupies another country, or a passengeroccupies an airplane…

When I get to work on any given afternoon, I have to walk through a wall of sound to get into the kitchen. The big boombox that sits on top of our giant mixer is blaring the Spanish AM station loud enough to curdle the milk. The good news is I get there at two…

This afternoon I had my first experience attending the monthly meeting with the folks from Duke Dining Serivces. I had no idea what kind of meeting I was going to; I just knew I was supposed to go. I went with Tabitha, who is our floor manager and we met with two women who work…

I was walking from my car to the kitchen this afternoon when I saw a little gang of daffodils in full bloom – on March 3. Those of you who live in non-New England types of climates may not understand the disorientation I experienced. I’m not used to flowers in March that aren’t either cut…