From my office.

 
IMG_1216ROTB redoThere are exciting things happening here in the ROTB office. I can’t yet pull down a curtain declaring, “Ta-Da!”
But, I have wonderful plans.
I’m working with a business consultant who keeps reminding me that the best way to chop down a tree is to first spend time sharpening the axe. Lots of planning is scheduled for the next months.
As I just configured the new email server to automate the next 9 articles, I can tell you that there are great articles coming. Here’s a preview:

  • Learning from Satan. (Origins of the word and a spiritual exercise we can apply based on that knowledge.)
  • Right, wrong, easy, hard. (How our thinking makes things more complicated.)
  • Addicted (A confessional.)
  • Silent Compliments. (A suggestion that perhaps when people don’t say anything to us, they are actually approving.)
  • Think(less) Emotions. (Again, about how our thinking gets us in trouble.)
  • Enthusiasm with Furrowed Brows. (The relationship between anxiety and excitement are in my eyebrows!)
  • A Fluid Relationship. (Analysis of stereotypes and how we get stuck.)
  • Love. (The four most important things I know about what love really is.)
  • Radical Sufficiency. (A suggestion on how to get more from what is.)

Flash Bang

✧✧✧ My buddy Marc meets me near my house at 3:30 on Saturday afternoon so we can bike to the small park named for Elizabeth Caruthers. I looked her up as I started to write this article. Elizabeth Caruthers was an early pioneer woman whose Supreme Court case led to the 1850 Donation Act—ruling that a woman, married or not,

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Hiawatha Johnson, JR.

January 2026 — Portland, ORE Hiawatha Johnson, Jr., a mentor and friend died. Summer 1985 — Magic Camp Oakdale, Long Island I’m 15. He’s 30. He wears a dashiki. He uses a walking stick. I’m prepubescent. I listen to comedy cassettes on a Walkman. I’m in awe. ✧✧✧ I perform a rather banal magic act that year — me narrating

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The Delay

2026 issue #03 — The Delay I’m in my buddy David’s car. He’s driving me from my mom’s apartment in NYC to Newark, NJ, where I’m going to catch a plane back home to Portland. David and I have been friends for fifty years. Amazing. My phone dings. I look at it. Nothing important. Just an alert from United. *

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