Cracked Window

I’m a big fan of a guy’s blog. He’s a storyteller, and a damn good one. Even if he wasn’t, he’d win my award for best blog name: And I Am Not Lying.

Jeff Simmermon hasn’t posted much lately, and I just found out why: he apparently has testicular cancer.

His account of learning about the tumor and what’s ahead is entertaining yet poignant, like his other writing. The piece also conveys an attitude worth emulating when confronted with a serious medical problem.

The older I get the more I wonder how I’ll handle what’s likely inevitable.

Cracked Window celebrated its one-year anniversary today without fanfare. That’s because I stayed away from the keyboard and enjoyed the outdoors on a beautiful spring day in Portland. It was my first nothing-but-shorts-and-tee-shirt day of 2009.

Random projects, including installing two trellises on the fence two years after I bought them, were too much to resist. My little boy delighted in helping me squeeze the trigger on the power drill and marking holes for screws. Little things go a long way.

I invited Atticus to join me by asking if he “wanted to make some trouble,” an innocent enough expression. But he repeated it throughout the day, at one point telling his grandmother: “Daddy and me made some trouble today.”

And after 294 blog  posts, that’s what I plan to do more of on Cracked Window.

Every so often I stumble upon a story and see myself as the central character:

It sounded like a bunch of centaurs were following an exercise video upstairs, right above my bed this morning. Interesting visual, but at 7 AM there ain’t a damn thing more fascinating and beautiful than the backs of my eyelids underneath the blankets.

Thus begins another installment in a blog that I cruise to daily, hoping for a new entry. The best stories, writes the author, Jeff Simmermon, are “fertilized with a pinch of some amazing shit that always starts with ‘And I am NOT lying.’ ”

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Cracked Window needed a friend. How else to explain its diminutive new companion, More Cracked, a spartan place for random photos and asides.

With Cracked Window nearing its one-year anniversary, I decided a big blog and Twitter aren’t enough for the ephemera I latch onto. Better to get it out of my head and make room for more.