The Hammer Times

  • Free Range

    It’s become common to hear people say, I buy free-range because I want the animal to have lived a more natural life before it dies. Isn’t that hunting, minus the camouflage? Read more

  • I’m Getting a Snow Plow

    When I retire, fewer than 1,000 days from today, I’m getting a red pickup truck. This purchase has been on my retirement agenda since I moved to Portland. (The Ram 1500 above is larger than I’ll need, but the apple red is just the color I’d want.) Red pickup + dog (Ziggy adores car rides) Read more

  • Ziggy’s Corner: Ideas to Chew On

    It’s possible and even likely that you are the expert on you. If you believed it, would it change your life? 🐾 Read more

  • Intrusive Thoughts

    I’ve had intrusive thoughts that I’m being mutilated by sharp objects, usually broken glass or knives, for most of my adult life – since I was 28. I’ve had years, even multiple years, when I didn’t have them and many, many more where they have repeatedly banged on my brain and battered my psyche. In Read more

  • Which Came First, the Amygdala or the Bear?

    Imagine you’re an early human out picking huckleberries. You’re feeling giddy in the warm afternoon sun after huddling in your cave, enduring ten days of cold spring rain. There you are, filling your basket, cheerfully belting out, “Oh My Darling Clementine” with berry juice dripping down your chin. Suddenly, the other side of the berry Read more

  • Coming to the Manger – A Gay Advent in Four Reflections: Peace

    A Peace That Transcends The WORLD Queer folk: Not everyone will accept you when you come out. Some, including family, might never accept you. They might reject and expel you. As stark and gut-wrenching as that reality is, when you’re ready, come out anyway. Others will love you, make space for you, and let you Read more

  • On Hospitality

    Come in! Come in! Welcome to our home! All is ready. We have swept away the old, anticipating the new, anticipating you. We have even dressed up a little (or a lot!) to celebrate the occasion of you. We have prepared special foods, delectable treats. The wine is poured, the table is set. Come. Welcome Read more

  • Coming to the Manger – A Gay Advent in Four Reflections: Joy

    Joy There was a moment at my third Pride parade when I was so overcome with joy that my knees buckled. This was a stark contrast to my first two parades, which were uncomfortably awkward. My first time, in Seattle, I slunk around, closeted and alone. I’m still not sure what I was doing there, Read more

  • Coming to the Manger – A Gay Advent in Four Reflections: Love

    LOVE Conditional love can take all the starch out of a person. It dissolves the very skeleton that frames you, holds you upright, and structures your being. It leaves you slumping, a formless puddle of who you were meant to be, with all the pieces there but no scaffold on which to build a life. Read more

  • Coming to the Manger – A Gay Advent in Four Reflections: Hope

    HOPE: A Cornerstone of Being Gay Hope is a cornerstone of being gay. It is the hope to break through the dry, parched soil of conformity and expectations, to be brave enough to push past our own protective exteriors and the layers of society’s stiff mud. We hope coming out will allow honesty to blossom Read more