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Over dinner one night my dad started telling me about his first day in Canada. It was 1968 and he was twenty-three, arriving on a plane with eight dollars in his pocket to start a new life by himself in a country he had never visited. “A community group had a welcome dinner for new...

It’s where the wild things are. See, we’ll never really know how far the universe flies but maybe we should be wondering how far our minds go inside. Because when you let your thoughts run free … they bounce all over the place. When your brain slips into the basement …...

Today’s the greatest day you’ve ever lived. Today’s the only day you’ve ever lived. The past is gone, the future is far, nothing else matters, except where you are. AWESOME! Wow! The Book of (Even More) Awesome debuts at #1 in paperback!  Live in Toronto? Join me on...

Burn, baby, burn. Life’s not long and we only got so many moments we’re wide awake. So take, take, take — grab that run at sunrise, laugh with baby before the door, clock into work with energy, and clock out looking for more. Run to that soccer practice, grab ice cream when...

My friend Jason had a tradition. Every year on the last day of school he’d stop on the bridge over the creek on his walk home, pop open all his three-hole binders, and dump and shake all his pen-scrawled notes and sticker-covered tests into the bubbling rapids below. Somehow the sight of...

We’re all just twisted messes. Sure, you might look fine in your pleated pants and your frilly dresses, but beneath all that we’re just twisted messes. Brown slippery organs, brittle bones, and bubbling blood cramp every tight little space in your body’s homeplace,...

This is the end, beautiful friend. Late next week 1000 Awesome Things will hit #1 and we’ll have finished four years counting down one awesome thing every weekday. So… like Luke Skywalker’s triumphant final battle against the Fish Monsters, the Jamaican bobsled team’s...

Because you finally satisfy your toughest critic. Yourself. AWESOME! Live in Toronto? I’ll be at Chapters John & Richmond next Wednesday, April 18th at 7pm for a special event announcing the #1 awesome thing! Photo from: here ...

Do you remember bank calendars? When I was little my sister and I always waited between velvet ropes with my dad to see the bank teller — while lines rounded, stamps pounded, and thumbs counted, bills. Sometimes we grabbed faded pink and green deposit slips — the ones printed on...

When my friends Chris, Ty, and I went on our cross-country road trip a few years back, we managed to stop in the small, hardscrabble dirt town of Paris, Texas. In addition to visiting the Kimberly-Clark diaper factory, miniature Eiffel Tower, and famous Jesus in Cowboy Boots statue, Ty...

My sister’s name is Nina. She was born sixteen months after me and we were tight from the beginning. When my parents brought her home from the hospital I couldn’t stop marveling at her thick chock of black hair, tiny smudge of a nose, and tightly closed eyes. We traveled together a...