Journal Entry 4/28/26

The first of an experiment

I’m trying something new.

To the twelve of you who have become paying subscribers on Substack—not for perks, just out of generosity—I appreciate it more than you probably realize. I’m not sure this quite qualifies as a “benefit,” but I hope you’ll get something out of it… or at least help keep me accountable.

I’ve always meant to keep a journal and never quite stuck with it. So here’s the experiment: once a week, I’ll pick a moment from the past few days and turn it into a journal entry. To make it a little more interesting (for me, at least), I’ll dictate the entry and have AI render it in the voice of a writer I admire.

Tonight’s entry is in the style of William Styron, whose Sophie’s Choice was one of the first books that made me care as much about the prose as the story itself.

These entries will live behind the paywall—so this really is just for a small group. If you find it interesting, or even just mildly entertaining, let me know.

My souvenir - Governor Barbara Roberts signed this photo taken several years ago.

April 28, 2026

There are evenings that arrive without particular fanfare and yet manage, in the slow accumulation of their hours, to deposit something lasting in the sediment of one’s memory. Tonight was such an evening. Eddie Passadore, with the easy generosity that defines him, had opened his home for a fundraiser, and it was there — in the warm, crowded geography of that living room — that I found myself seated beside Barbara Roberts, the former Governor of Oregon, who is eighty-nine years old and who carries those years the way certain old trees carry their rings: not as burden, but as evidence.