What’s everyone reading? I’m revisiting one of my favorites by a most influential authors: IN A SHALLOW GRAVE by James Purdy. His prose becomes poetry. Case in point: “… we both exchanged what was like one single, same terrible look, a look like two shots which met and exploded together in the air.”

Today’s #cycling adventure took me a little over an hour and a half and 19.1 miles. #grateful

#FBF #Prom 1977 with my awesome date, Maryalice. Guess what the theme of the prom was (based on my tux).

Today, I’m #grateful for funny, talented women who do me the honor of sitting on my lap. With Jennifer Coolidge once upon a time in Seattle. We could not talk or talk forever and still find things to not talk about. But we did discover we both love soup…

The things I'm unearthing as I open old boxes that were in the garage and untouched for years! Here I am, around 1979 at my alma mater, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, still a smooth baby at 20. #FBF

Some portrait artists use oils, some watercolors, some pen and ink. Oliver Kornetzke uses words to create a portrait and the end result is astonishingly accurate. Bravo, Mr. Kornetzke.

Today, I’m #grateful for my favorite John Waters movie. Without naming it, show me your favorite #movie.

#Tofu “egg” salad with #avocado and green #Tabasco on whole grain #toast. It’s what’s for #breakfast.

This morning was a good reminder why I am so happy to be a morning person. Today’s dog walk revealed a beautiful #sunrise and some lovely #photo opps.

Today, I'm #grateful for growing older & for the lines on my face and what they show—the history flowing behind me and the knowledge that I'm still here, diminished in some ways, enhanced in others. There's a comfort in knowing you survived the bad and were blessed with the good.

Now that #autumn is on the doorstep, I'm #grateful for #pasta fagioli! What (or who) is your favorite #Italian dish? #Saturday

#TBT With my dear departed mother and my newborn son, Nicholas, March 1984, Evanston, IL. Sweet memories. #gratitude

Today, I’m #grateful for the #sunrise. What are you grateful for?

Today, I’m #grateful to be at this point in my life. Older, but wiser (I hope!), and accumulating memories of people, places, and experiences I’ve loved and/or learned from. #GrowingOlder is not all bad!

Today’s award for colorful writing goes to SA Cosby in RAZORBLADE TEARS: “The buckshot caught Gremlin where his thigh became a part of his abdomen, blasting him off the porch. When he hit the ground, his large and small intestines began to unspool like a ribbon of saltwater taffy soaked in merlot.”

#vintage #familypics #RIP From left to right, my Aunt Eleanor, Uncle Ray, and my father, Nelson. Early 1930s.

"Reed's story of loss, love, & suffering showcases his ability to explore the nature of evil and, more profoundly, the humanity behind it." --Gregory Ashe, author of the Hazard & Somerset Mysteries: www.amazon.com/Silence-Miss... #CrimeFiction #WritingCommunity #ownvoices #thrillerbooks #mystery

19.13 miles, 1000 calories, and 1 hour, 40 minutes. #cycling

I love this sentence in the book I’m reading: “The woman wore her bitterness like a badge; the kind of person who writes one-star book reviews.”

A little over 11 miles on a beautiful, cool morning. #cycling

15.8 miles, 1 hour 20 minutes. #cycling

Beware of looking for love in all the wrong places... www.amazon.com/Toxic-Rick-R... #catfishing #Seattle #thriller #PsychologicalThriller

Here I am, in 1984, in Evanston, IL with my then-wife, Ellen and our new son, Nicholas. This photo fills me with #gratitude because these two are at my heart’s center. Despite a few rocky years around the time of our divorce, our love weathered the storm. Marriages can end, but love doesn’t have to.

18.18 miles in about 90 minutes. Good #cycling. #grateful

I see a dog sitting on its haunches. How 'bout you?

15.46 miles 1.19 hours #cycling

THE IMPOSSIBLE CHILDHOOD OF MY DESIRES--My heartfelt story of #trans awakening and how one couple's love is tested in the face of long-buried secrets. Will their reveal bring understanding or destroy a marriage? www.amazon.com/Impossible-C...

Today, I’m #grateful for #inspiration, all around me. #amwriting “Everyone is their own universe—a life, a dream, a hope, a sorrow, a joy, a surprise, a revelation, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end—even when they simply walk by you on the street.” ― Harlan Coben, Home

16.4 miles, 1 hour, 21 minutes. #cyclinglife

Today, I'm #grateful for THE WIZARD OF #OZ, my favorite #movie of all time. If you can pick only one, what’s your favorite movie of all time?

As part of the Queer Lit Book Blast, my semi-autobiographical love story, BLINK, is on sale at Amazon Kindle today only for 99 cents! Get Yours for 99 Cents today only: www.amazon.com/Blink-Rick-R... #ownvoices #LGBTQ

#NationalDogDay They're bugging me to post their pictures. I told them I post pics all the time of them, but they said not every day is National Dog Day. I thought, 'oh yes, every day is,' but I've learned not to argue and obey. I give you my little masters, Kodi and Joaquin (left). #gratitude

#Cycling for #freedom. 16.04 miles, 1 hour, 22 minutes.

Today, I’m #grateful for #memories of #home. A few weeks ago, when I was in #Chicago, my friend Venus (left), my son, Nick, and I went to the first home I shared with Bruce, back in 2002, in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. We were in the top floor unit behind us, with the balcony.

Today, I’m #grateful that it’s our own #perception of things that shapes our reality...and our happiness. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ― Marcel Proust

12.3 miles.#cycling. 90 degrees.

Today, I’m #grateful I grew up here in East Liverpool, a little Ohio River town nestled in the foothills of the Appalachians. Photo by my dear friend of more than 40 years, Donna Anderson, who remains a proud East Liverpudlian to this day.

#tbt 1977, East Liverpool, Ohio. That's me in the foreground, a lot of years younger and a lot of pounds lighter. #grateful to still be here.

#tbt My son, Nicholas, and I on his wedding day, August 15, 2009, #Montreal, #Quebec.

Saturday mornings are for #Cycling.

Today, I'm #grateful for #books that make me cry. The first one that comes to mind, for me, is SHUGGIE BAIN. Such tender, painful, and poignant insight into the human condition. By the end, I was blubbering like a baby. What book caused you to shed a tear...or two?

On my blog today, I explore the paradox of #grief over losing my husband and the #gratitude I have for quiet mornings in solitude. Hope you'll give it a read: rickrreedreality.blogspot.com/2025/08/two-...

Lucky 13 miles #cycling this morning, as the sun came up.

A quote from one of my most beloved #authors, from one of my most beloved #books (KAFKA ON THE SHORE), just when I needed it most. Funny how it sometimes works that way… #grateful

Kimchi rice with poached eggs and Sriracha. It’s what’s for #breakfast. What did you have?

#Cycling my ass off.

I'm Tired of Hatred open.substack.com/pub/johnpavl...

#cycling and keeping the demons at bay.

Ah, memories. 14 years ago, in Egan, MN, on the occasion of Bruce’s mom’s 90th birthday. Here, Bruce and I sandwich his sister Kim in between us. Good times. #gratitude