People wash up on this site for all sorts of great, Googly reasons. Which is to say, hello, Jake Ryan fans. Hello, Mormon undergarment researchers. Hello (and hasty goodbye) to people on the hunt for teenage virgins (the virgins are here, but they're not what you're looking for). Most of all, hello to anyone who winds up here looking for articles written by me.

I've posted 19 stories ­ features and essays -- in handy-dandy menu form at left. Most of them are from The Washington Post, but there's also an oldie, from the Austin American-Statesman, a 1997 story about a guitar that still tends to draw a lot of repeat customers or referrals.

Here's my standard spiel, in response to some of the e-mail I get from readers, other journalists, the occasional antagonist, etc.: Do I have a beat at the Post? (No.) How do I come up with ideas? (Any way possible.) How often do I have to file an article? (There's no real answer to that, but it shakes out to about 75,000 words a year.) How long does it take to write one? (How long do I got? -- an old newsroom joke.)

Latest question: How come we haven't seen any new articles by you in the Post lately? (In March 2005, I took a temporary job as an assignment editor in the paper's daily Style section. I'm liking it quite a bit. This is the first time I've had in a decade to cool my jets and not write for a while, and re-learning a valuable lesson ­ good editing is damn hard work. I hope to return to my writing cubicle, and the world at large, in a few more months.)

I have learned that those without beats need to sort of form one in their heads and develop an overriding sensibility that guides them away from what everyone else is writing about. In my work I try to set out for the overlooked margins of our daily, or pop-cultural, lives: I like empty shopping malls, unpretty streets, teenagers who don't help out the community, low-technology, Kmarts (or anything employing the middle-American "k" -- kamping, kountry, krazy). I like memories and nostalgia for things that don't often fit the definition of popular retro. I like science that doesn't make headlines. I like to see what's in people's houses. I like stores. This is a start. Lately, I've been pegged as a "funny" writer -- he's wacky, he's oddball, he's homo (and he is) -- but I have always felt my work ran a bit deeper than that, even with lighter subjects.

Thanks for dropping by, and thanks for reading...