A Touch of Gray

Manyu has beautiful salt and pepper hair. It is raven black highlighted with individual strands of white. She keeps it barely shoulder-length and carries a classic look that cannot be replicated in a hair salon. Last week she dyed it all black. Dying hair is an annual...

I Might Have That Kind of Face

As a young man, I might have had a face people trusted. Often I was told I needed to smile more, but smiles, at least fake ones, reveal an underlying dishonesty more than a face that might be described as emotionless. This fact often puts politicians in a bind. When...

No Dogs or Cats

I can’t remember who the author was, but I once read a book jacket bio that read, “And he has no dogs or cats.” I checked out the book from the library for that reason alone, and now wish I’d gone to a bookstore to buy it. That kind of sarcasm...

Writing Gladly

Creating a new button on my website should take about five minutes. It would be a five minute task, except for the fact that I always forget how to do it. Each year between Christmas and New Years I need to add a new button to archive the upcoming year’s blog...

A Warm Winter So Far

Two weeks ago I wrote that La Crosse had received snow that would last until March. I called that one wrong. The snow is gone, and today is nearly fifty degrees Fahrenheit.  The La Crosse River Marsh refuses to settle into winter. One day the ice looks thick enough to...
Steven Simpson