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Greetings from Carrboro, Our job is to make it look easy. No matter how busy the night is. Or how hot. Or how cold. No matter if a dishwasher is out sick or if the hand you burned royally the night before screams every time it gets anywhere near heat. You just deal. Half because […]

Greetings from Carrboro, I blame Olivia Newton John. For me, post-Grease, she just was Australia. Or, at least, the part of Australia that wasn’t full of kangaroos and koalas and platypuses. And, come to think of it, even they were ridiculously cute. That island continent was on the other side of the globe, far enough away that hewing my hazy […]

January 15, 2019   Greetings from Carrboro, Each of us took a number. On those warm summer evenings, the Baskin-Robbins on South Blvd was packed. It was always easier to wait on the curb for your number to be called or just to stand outside, lean against mom’s station wagon, and listen to the car […]

Greetings from Carrboro, Desire tells a very human story. It bends and shapes our lives. In big and little ways. If discipline tells us how to do something well, desire insistently tells us why. And if that desire shapes your profession, it requires courage and a profound willingness to fail. There is endless work no one sees and […]

December 27, 2018 Greetings from Carrboro, Happily, we’re in that initial poultry stretch of Christmas. You know, the four calling birds and French hens and doves and that tree-bound partridge part. There’s still a solid amount of luster lingering around the season. It still feels, well, festive. But by the time the band arrives with […]

Greetings from Carrboro, There should be a bumper sticker: What Would Santa Drink? My guess isn’t milk or cocoa. And I certainly don’t see him as some jaded elf, man-spreading in his office, looking at his infamous list with a tumbler of cheap scotch in his hand. No. I must say that I picture Ol’ […]

Greetings from Carrboro, I think gift bags added five years to my life. Though, admittedly, I do have serious issues making the all-important tissue paper look, well, right. It’s the crinkling part. By and large, if you stare at any one of my gift bags for more than a few seconds it looks more like an […]

Greetings from Carrboro, Someone taught me that the key is to sing it fast. To get that first word out in a hurry. So I’d practice once before I called. Her voice was always full of feigned surprise, as if her caller ID was some kind of illicit secret. As if I hadn’t followed through with […]

Greetings from Carrboro, I know that I’m not alone. If asked for what I’m grateful, I freeze up and say something remarkably banal like puppies or rainbows or those new flavors of LaCroix. A lot of that stems from a decade’s worth of familial scarring at the Thanksgiving table of my childhood. How in the hell […]

November 15, 2018 Greetings from Carrboro, That first time, his father drove. He was 8 or 9. And it took them nearly a week from Ohio. Some stretches of road were hard dirt and gravel. Gas station maps were often worthless and road signs were rare. But my father didn’t remember any of that. No. […]