<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[My Site 66]]></title><description><![CDATA[My Site 66]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/blog</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:31:13 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.terrydanuser.com/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[A Little Romance]]></title><description><![CDATA[For some reason, I’ve avoided Paris since I was twenty-four, a trip punctuated by my peeing the hotel’s feather bed after a night of too many beers. This time, though, couldn’t have been more different and without any urinary mishaps. The past three days captured the light and the love this city always promised. While I don’t know a lick of French and sometimes stumble into rudimentary Spanish as a default, the people have been nothing but gracious, some even finding my Americaness exotic....]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/a-little-romance</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a20c33f1fcfaffaf6e096e2</guid><category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:18:13 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_d0a8ef1e7abb46baaebfaf2f5cead3ac~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_768,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Payphone]]></title><description><![CDATA[I haven’t seen her in weeks. She’d sit on one of those padded walker-chairs, huddled next to the pay phone. Every day on Lexington Avenue a block from my office, I’d side glance her, not wanting her to feel self-conscious. Her hair was a short shock of blonde curls in the back, the front straight and plastered to her forehead like too much margarine. Sometimes, she’d look up at me and smile, which I eagerly returned. It crossed my mind to take a shot of her, but if she caught me, I’d feel as...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/the-payphone</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a21db24aaa8d363bc43d52e</guid><category><![CDATA[Trouble]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:08:54 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_ffa019144b944bbeb542c9b6604798d1~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_800,h_450,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A nun in Berlin]]></title><description><![CDATA[I arrived in Berlin just in time to see the cottonwood trees shed themselves for the summer making it look like a fluffy snow storm, God blowing a late-season dandelion over the whole city. Along the curbs, dust bunnies gathered for a minute before a breeze would come along and shoo them away. I suppose every city has a past to escape, but maybe none more than Berlin. Reminders of its not-so-distant past slap you at every turn. See a building over sixty years old? You have to wonder what...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/a-nun-in-berlin</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a21d98b14f1bdc71962906e</guid><category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 20:02:52 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_655a044bbe40491ea0512b6682b56412~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_540,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Grandma’s Cheeseburger]]></title><description><![CDATA[The small coffee can half-filled with bacon grease that sat on the back of Grandma’s old gas stove always lent the kitchen the smell that breakfast could be right around the corner. She’d begin every meal with a teaspoon of it thrown into a black cast iron skillet, and the two-bedroom house would come alive as if it were dawn’s first light even if the sun had set an hour before. I sat on the glittery vinyl chair by the yellow linoleum table and watched her, my legs swinging back and forth...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/grandma-s-cheeseburger</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a21ad471f44c606b374c0e6</guid><category><![CDATA[Family]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 16:55:38 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_da876970f631472f9bc8ec4a3963cdb4~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_800,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Suicide Sal]]></title><description><![CDATA[I knew I had to shift away from my best friend Mark when I felt those tears start up in my eyes at the end of the most beautiful movie I’d ever seen. He sat right next to me, baby-faced and bug-eyed, his braces making him look like he was always in the middle of saying something. I was already embarrassed from when one of the characters, C.W., took his shirt off and I felt my shorts start to get tight. Those two hours I spent with Bonnie and Clyde, my sneakers stuck to the theater floor of a...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/suicide-sal</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22efb6861147e3839565f3</guid><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 15:57:59 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_94b67077c47142ebb8825febc113729d~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_711,h_400,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Aunt Bessie’s Trunk]]></title><description><![CDATA[The only thing I knew about my great-Aunt Bessie before she passed away while I was in class during my first year of school was that she had her left leg amputated from a bad bout of diabetes, and that she had a trunk that my whole family wanted, especially my grandfather’s side since she was my grandpa’s sister. She lived in a nursing home; I’d heard that at the dinner table, and to hear the family tell it, she had some money, too. I arrived home from school to my mother crying, yet I didn’t...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/aunt-bessie-s-trunk</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a2035aff9e37e2aaa16b94e</guid><category><![CDATA[Family]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 14:11:36 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_31daa2c25a4c43a38a42596c6c90e6cc~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_350,h_263,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Back Stairs]]></title><description><![CDATA[The Back Stairs If I close the door at the bottom of the steep service stairs that lead from the bedrooms to the kitchen, it blocks out the distant light from the Gaffers and Sattler stove, making the stairwell itself a pitch-black downward tunnel. The last thing I do before I corral the dogs into the bedroom is to close the top door to that staircase, the lip of that first stair just a toe’s length away from a very bumpy and painful decline. You’ll never know what hit you. I may not hear you...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/the-back-stairs</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a2030b0c9d8b2a0564ebe0d</guid><category><![CDATA[Trouble]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 09 Jun 2026 13:54:22 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_51e734dcb99b42a9b512fa95f32640d2~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Queen of the Bench]]></title><description><![CDATA[Her posture is as if she’s still got that finishing school textbook balancing on the top of her head and it’s not until you get up close that you see her regal headdress, as tall as Marge Simpson’s hair, is in tatters, the color of cream shaded with the soot of the subway. Every single night when I get off the 4 train at the Wall Street stop, she sits on the same wooden bench, legs crossed as if she were sitting on a satin settee, her bags on the ground overflowing with the essentials of a...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/the-queen-of-the-bench</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22e979861147e383955a11</guid><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:22:06 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_04038d872e464f32856d7e14ffbae547~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_768,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Final Clothes]]></title><description><![CDATA[I had to get this one task just right. I had to. The autopsy took a week. I played out the gruesome things they were doing to him. I still do, sometimes. I had to choose his final clothing once Billy was released to the funeral home. I always told him that he had more clothes than a supermodel, but Billy didn’t have racks of designer clothes. Nope. He shopped in bargain bins, vintage shops, the boy’s department at Sears. Jeans and a well-selected t was his uniform. If you’d open one of his...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/final-clothes</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22e905f64e529b409cfd0b</guid><category><![CDATA[Billy]]></category><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:20:20 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_0eb3b0c8a1f04dde8e2c14524a43b7ea~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_624,h_515,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Jordan]]></title><description><![CDATA[There’s walking and then there’s Petra walking. I think my feet are still inside my shoes, but I’m afraid to check. The site is all of the superlatives wrapped in miles of gorgeous carved ancient sandstone. It’s a movie set, only it’s real. My guide, Ali, repeated “Terry” like an overused comma in his running monologue, so there was never a single chance I’d forget my first name. I loved every second. *** Okay, remember these from yesterday only they were wearing shoes? Well, I am still here....]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/jordan</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22e88f861147e38395585b</guid><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:18:27 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_21a78259769e497d96d6f53c18cbf7cf~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Song That Doesn’t Stop]]></title><description><![CDATA[The lyrics to the song came to me as soon as I opened the door to the loft, inspiration in an instant. The first was, “Billy!” then, “ No!” then, “Oh, God!” It was my song, those roller coaster off-the-rails screams, that woke up our neighbors. The second I opened that door, I knew. I found myself on my knees at the couch, rocking him. He was cold, a mannequin moving back and forth in my arms, while I sang that fucking song at the top of my lungs. And white, impossibly white, with a dark...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/the-song-that-doesn-t-stop</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22e78f14f1bdc71964cde9</guid><category><![CDATA[Billy]]></category><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:14:52 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lizorna]]></title><description><![CDATA[I’d just finished screaming at my secretary. I might have made her cry. I didn’t know or care. She’d lost the call I’d been waiting for all day. She left my office with a quivering lower lip like I’d just killed her puppy. I scooted back a carefully laid paper tent on my twelve-foot imported marble desk, held a rolled-up bill to my nostril, and repeated what I’d already done five times so far that day. A studio friend called earlier about a woman he’d met who was convinced that she was the...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/lizorna</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22e3d3861147e383954ee0</guid><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 15:00:02 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_adf09cfe24c2425f947351846660e266~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_225,h_225,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Sigiriya in Sri Lanka]]></title><description><![CDATA[Sleeping while crocodiles roam underneath you. Crazy cool eco-resort built above a thriving croc population. Sri Lanka has some of the most sophisticated design.]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/sigiriya-in-sri-lanka</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22ded0adfe5a170758b1b6</guid><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:55:41 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_5b91540e8b894d778af90cb7749e7a71~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Our last night in NYC]]></title><description><![CDATA[The movers are here, swarming my apartment with paper and tape, packing up every tangible memory I have. I’m heading back to LA and I’m kinda freaking out about it. NYC is home, moved here five years and two months ago. I love my neighborhood and my building. The doormen have had my back this whole time. They’re friends. And I made a few really important relationships here, people I’ll miss a whole lot, and I hope to see them when the bad cloud lifts. This city has been grim and crippled...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/our-last-night-in-nyc</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22dcb614f1bdc71964b92f</guid><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:29:40 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="http://video.wixstatic.com/video/1a42b9_fd9e040b55c94019a1df09c085369cb6/720p/mp4/file.mp4" length="0" type="video"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Marrakesh mash]]></title><description><![CDATA[I don’t think I’d hit puberty, yet, when I first saw Hitchcock’s remake of his own “The Man Who Knew Too Much” on TV, but when I did, I was hooked on two things: Hitchcock movies and Morocco. Okay, so, Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day take their young son on a holiday to Marrakech. After having dinner with two odd Brits, the next day they head into Jemaa el-Fnaa, the main square deep in the Medina. The camera follows them as the enormous marketplace is slowly revealed. Meanwhile, a man is being...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/marrakesh-mash</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22dad53919feaaedf8ad7b</guid><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:24:13 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="http://video.wixstatic.com/video/1a42b9_89a3de7cdedb452791f35401240293c9/240p/mp4/file.mp4" length="0" type="video"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Elbow comedy]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was pure comedy gold when my face kissed the sidewalk on Chambers St in front of an audience the size of an equity waiver house. How did you simply fall face first, you might ask? I’d say none of your business. But through that week, the minor nose and lip scrapes gave way to the EDM throbbing of my right elbow, which got so loud I had to see a doc. He took one look, grim, said “You tore your tricep.” The surgery was ten days ago. They reattached my muscle to the tendon to the bone. The...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/elbow-comedy</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a22d9b41f44c606b3774e38</guid><pubDate>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 14:15:12 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Jemaa el-Fnaa]]></title><description><![CDATA[It was about half past midnight and I was four beers deep when I left El Saalam, one of the few clubs that serves liquor off of Jemaa el-Fnaa, the place where I shot this video. Halfway home, a guy saw me checking my map and offered to help. I read on guide sites that this was a popular scam, I just kept walking. He followed as a friend joined him, two on my tail. I kept ignoring them, the twisty alleyways were dark, all of the shops closed. The only others out seemed to know my two new...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/jemaa-el-fnaa</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a21dd74367ed35011d626a7</guid><category><![CDATA[Trouble]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:19:12 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_057e3c7a9926433c9f4328c70b08a07a~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_825,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Only Two Years In]]></title><description><![CDATA[I celebrated my second anniversary of my move to NYC last night with a large man cooing in my ear while riding the packed 4 train from Grand Central to Wall Street. My earbuds in place, I listened to Howard Stern play a phony phone call. The woman squeezed at my side had a pointy purse at crotch level making me wish I’d worn a cup. And then it started. “You’re my son. You’re my son. You’re my son.” I couldn’t quite hear him at first, but you know that feeling you get when someone is staring...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/only-two-years-in</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a21da6b1f44c606b3752865</guid><category><![CDATA[Trouble]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2026 20:06:39 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_b8dd7c53cdf04ec88e7b6b8e12a66792~mv2.jpeg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_975,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Dhammika’s Family]]></title><description><![CDATA[This trip had some crummy travel, the outbound flight arriving past midnight and the return leaving in the wee hours of morning, but Sri Lanka is still a unique place to shake off the grit and slip into the silk jammies of the jungle. So, I saw a herd of a hundred elephants in Kaudalla, including a stare-down with a mama protecting her wobbly two to three-week old behind her. The group’s hierarchy and internal chatter became clearer as I sat there soaking it in. A dark storm blew through...]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/dhammika-s-family</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a21d861513f7725cf1fa745</guid><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:57:31 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/1a42b9_9428cece88014ee3b779e56531dfcba0~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lisbon]]></title><description><![CDATA[The accordion music floated in the air drawing me closer to see the little dog on the player’s shoulder. An elderly man walked by and put a coin in the cup dangling from the pup’s mouth. I started to video them. I dug into my pocket and gave a couple of euros, too. How could I not? But as I walked away, I thought, OMG what if that dog doesn’t want to hold a money pot in his mouth? What if that man affixed it there with wires and greed? Did I just contribute to animal cruelty?]]></description><link>https://www.terrydanuser.com/post/lisbon</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6a21d6ac367ed35011d61704</guid><category><![CDATA[Travel]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 04 Jun 2026 19:50:19 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="http://video.wixstatic.com/video/1a42b9_516fe4df5a444e23bf3c2d10372eb4e9/240p/mp4/file.mp4" length="0" type="video"/><dc:creator>tdanuser</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>