Hi, I'm Denis Muhr.

The material is ordinary. A three-year-old who runs full speed off a stage without checking whether his father's hands are there, because forty catches taught his body to stop asking. A supervisor on a building site with a pen, redrawing a rectangle on concrete to find out how long a teenager will keep hurting himself if he's told to.

I use my own life a lot, because it's the one I have full access to and because I usually come off worse in the telling. Fatherhood. The jobs I kept leaving. A marriage that ended without me feeling much of anything. My grandfather's face turning up in mine. What I'm after is the moment the pattern shows up before I've had time to hide it.

No system, no method, and a fair number of the pieces end without an answer because I don't have one yet.

Shorter notes most weeks, longer essays every couple of weeks. If you want them by email, the box is below. Nothing else arrives.