It’s Friday of the week that Danny asked me to marry him. I try not to let my relationships or my actions identify me, but I think it’s safe to allow this occasion to resonate and cast its rays across my experience for awhile. I’m still soaking in how it’s changing me, and how I look at my future. Mostly because I’ve been so used to my words and actions only affecting me, and perhaps occasionally leaving a gentle smudge on those around me. Now there’s another person in all of this, and families, and investments. It’s humbling, and reorienting. No one prepared me for what this very first week would be like. Up until the moment of your announcement, love is your own little secret between the two of you- it’s really only you two that know how entwining it has become. And as I declare this glorious union, I feel the pull of outside forces again as I reconnect with long lost friends, or close friends who have been outside this little world two people cocoon themselves in when the...

Yesterday was my third last day at Callister's. Yes, I have quit this job three times, and always on the absolute best of terms. Callister's has happily taken me back time and time again, even as I forget pereptually what the differene is between each of the farrier forges, what the difference is between keepers, togs, and slobber straps, and which saddles are rawhide, ralide, or fiberglass reinforced trees. The management has its issues, but for the most part, the people I work with on the floor are the absolute best coworkers that I've ever had. This past month I was shuffled between the clothing department, the hats and boots department, and of course, tack. Everywhere I went, I was reintroduced to the daily achievements and struggles and pleasures of the middle class American West. People getting cheated on, people's injured horses, people's beautiful western weddings, people trying to get by with bad pay, bad hours, and a big truck payment. but they do it, and ...