N J Ray
Life 2.0 and other weird shit

New Orleans Love and Patrick Henry
I love New Orleans. I have always loved New Orleans for as long as I can remember. NOLA. The Crescent City, the capital city of the Nation of Who Dat. The Big Easy, N’Awlins. Whatever we call her, she’s always a lady. Sure, she's a little frazzled around the edges,...
Digging Out
Two months. I had no idea it had been that long since I had last written. Man, does time scurry by without notice when you’re burying your head in "Supernatural." Fourteen seasons on Netflix. Well, that certainly was time well spent. I haven’t written...
Seeking the Light
Once upon a time, in the days of grumpkins and snarks, when the winter seemed as eternal as a reincarnating cockroach... Wait. Wrong subject. Closer to sixteen years ago, a man named Karl Poff once explained that pain is relative. He explained it to me like...
A Small Promise Kept for Woman…
...a large promise kept for who-the-hell knows. I swore this morning--like I have most mornings recently--that, if I accomplished nothing else today, I WOULD write a post. So here it is: DEPRESSION SUCKS. I know it doesn't match the ever-optimistic Life...
Moving Forward
Just when I thought I had a handle on things, I‘m pretty sure the handle just kind of broke. Or disappeared, like a ghost hanging out with Sam and Dean. One things I’ve discovered is that I get writer’s block. A lot. Days (ahem, like 14 of them or so) had passed...
Doing a Thing
Holy hell, has it been a minute. I’ve been walking around in a daze for the past week. I’ve done a thing. A thing I’ve never done before. A week ago Sunday, I finished payroll, doing my best to ensure "my people" would be paid correctly. I then called the supervisor...
Coming to Terms
A lady I worked with many years ago once imparted a great wisdom, whispering conspiratorially in my ear, "Life is so much better when I chose to be happy over being right. I'd much rather be happy than right." Sixteen years ago, those words tore through the...
The Measure of an Hour
It’s amazing what a week’s worth of real sleep will do for you. I took four days off and, oh-my-God was it good for the soul. I puttered a little; I visited old friends. I discovered what it was like to get a full night’s sleep. Nothing major happened over the week,...
Where did 2018 Go?
Instead of my usual looking forward wistfully to the blank boxes of a new calendar, I find myself mulling over the past year. I do wonder how 2018 has set up the absolute unknown of 2019, but mostly I’m looking back. New Year’s Eve is a good time to do that, I...
What you dig?
Because I'm always down for some good reading, or listening, or whatever, tell me what you're digging on now. Is it a blog? A book? A movie you're watching over and over again? A song, an artist? Let me know what you're digging, why you dig it, and where I can find...