Novel excerpt: The Almadeira

If my life were one of my paintings, it would be a tiny fresco of a bowl of soup filled a sixth of the way up. Instead, I create decorative azulejo tiles for the church: Jesus performing miracles, heroic battles, and good deeds done. And while I paint, a witch burns at the stake in the name of God.

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Travel post: London

Soho—you’ll have to pry me from here by my cold, dead hands. I will spend the rest of my days in this neighbourhood. I’ll eat artisanal cake for breakfast every day; consort with the independent fashion designers on Carnaby; wear bedazzled gear from Beyond Retro; hide from the tourists near Piccadilly; watch the locals head into the sex shops; eat hummus and gourmet burgers.

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Interoffice Signage

Believe it or not, I once worked for Google and got popular around the office for creating signs, posters, poems, limericks… Somehow, the Google Pittsburgh office caught wind of what I was doing and asked me to do one about towels. I also wrote a eulogy for the dearly departed office fish. RIP, Bubbles.

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Travel post: Lauterbrunnen

I finally understand the phrase “the hills are alive with the sound of music.” It  sounds like a wind chime here, with the gong-like sounds of cow bells mixing with the light ringing coming from the sheep’s collars, and the rushing 72 waterfalls that surround the valley, and the odd Yahoo! from the paragliders.

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