Author: Michael Murray

I received this message in my email this morning: *********************** Hello my new friend! I want to continue our dialogue! I hope you remember me. My name is Yulia! I really hope you write me very soon. I’m looking for a long and serious relationship. I want to find love and understanding. And maybe find…

As everybody now knows, one-time popular actress Jennifer Aniston has decided to scale back and simplify her life. The hinge upon which this transformation is going to swing is that she’s going to sell her Beverly Hills home for $42 million (a million for each year of her life!) and buy a “little spot” in…

Wind power turbines loom alien and mysterious over the valleys of West Pennsylvania. Slowly rotating, like crosses set into motion, they hang over the coal mines as if silent witnesses to the lives unfolding below. Driving through, the state unfolds beautiful, rolling and strange. The Machine Gun Preacher lives here, as do Mennonites, Mountain Men…

It might be psychological, but whenever I cross the border from Canada into the United States, I’m immediately aware that I’ve entered into a different culture. It might be the looming billboards for lawyers, but people, and even the space around them, seem vividly different. The Denny’s in Pennsylvania had both N’s burned out of…

An acquaintance of mine is kind of like Steve Zissou. He recently sent this text message to a friend of mine: “On expedition to interior Papua New Guinea: 10 mile death march paid off when we were first tourists ever to arrive in village not on the map. We were treated as VIP’s, asked to…

On Saturday Rachelle and I took our dog to the Bathurst-Dupont Animal Hospital to get her shots. Heidi, our Miniature Dachshund, couldn’t have been happier to be on an outing. Tail wagging, she bulled up the street as if she was off to open all the Christmas presents in the world. But no, this was…

Dreams I’ve had since Rachelle and I have been trying to buy a home in Toronto. **************************************************** I am standing inside of a house that we really want to buy and then suddenly somebody comes up behind me and hits me in the head with a brick. There is blood everywhere and then money begins…

Our landlord, who once described renting to Rachelle and I as the biggest mistake in his life, is interested in keeping his maintenance expenses to a minimum. He fobs this off as loyalty, as the building we live in, a 125 year- old hotel converted into apartments, has been in his family for over 50…

Today, Toronto is mild, soft and quiet. Heavy snowflakes drift from the sky as directionless as soap bubbles. A thick coat of white blankets the ground and for a minute, more than a minute, really, you feel that all missteps and obligations have been erased. The snow deadening the sounds of the city, you feel…