Author Archives: John Swinburn

The chief problem in using gasoline to douse a fire is obvious. Equally apparent is the fact that employing rage to quell anger will lead to similarly unsatisfactory results. +++ My computer clock gently reminds me of the time: 4:57 … Continue reading →

I feel as useful as a bag of wet rocks in a dust storm. I need to sleep again. No matter how much I sleep, it’s never enough. No matter how little I write, it’s always too much. +++ Big, challenging, … Continue reading →

Maybe there’s something to be said for the argument that undocumented aliens should be deported. After all, look what happened to the indigenous people on the land that became the United States. The original inhabitants of this territory were rounded … Continue reading →

A text yesterday afternoon from the oncology nurse asked me to return for a “red blood cell shot” this morning. I subsequently checked the results of the lab draws two days ago: quite low red blood cell count and the … Continue reading →

Even the simple luxuries we take for granted can turn against us. When that happens, they remind us that luxuries can transform into burdens. And they inform of us the emotional (and financial) costs they can bring to our lives. … Continue reading →

Strength takes many forms, some appearing vicious and some benign; some soft and malleable, some hard and inflexible. The only way to know whether an attribute is a strength or a weakness is to examine its context. Even then, appearances … Continue reading →

I feel somewhat better today but not sufficiently so—thus far—to want to go for a drive. That’s fine, because I do not plan to go for a drive. I’ve been sleeping for the better part of the last almost six … Continue reading →

I am scheduled to have a blood test—to check my magnesium level—in one hour. The results are intended to determine whether I need to return tomorrow to have an IV infusion of magnesium. Snow still covers most of my driveway. … Continue reading →

Slightly better this morning than yesterday. But, still, sufficient pain in the gut and chest to make me angry at my body and the universe. I slept nearly around the clock yesterday; the latest period began around 6 PM and … Continue reading →

An unexpected crash overwhelms me this morning. At least I have no immediate obligations. Except for the notice I received on Thursday, advising me to go in for a blood draw early Monday to check my magnesium, I have no … Continue reading →

Snow started falling fast around 1:00 PM yesterday in big, wet clumps. Three hours later, after the ground was buried under roughly three inches of pure white, the snowfall diminished considerably. Occasionally, it stopped, then started again—but the new snow … Continue reading →

Neither the undeservedly rich nor the undeservedly impoverished nor anyone in the vast middle deserves the traumatic horrors engulfing them in Southern California. Money—no matter how much—cannot be a salve for the pain of watching one’s own home and neighbors’ … Continue reading →

Reading the news is akin to stumbling into an extremely hot sauna—the vapors for which are supplied by filthy water, acetone, and gasoline—and hearing the door lock behind you. Greenland. Panama. The Gulf of America. Zero percent containment of hurricane-force … Continue reading →

Writing occasional notes to people who would be quite surprised to receive them from me has long been among my intentions…my failed intentions. But I plan to give it an honest try. Some mornings, instead of writing my blog, I … Continue reading →

For some reason, beef and pork lately have almost no appeal to me. Chicken is okay, but not something I crave. The only thing that sounds particularly appealing to me is ceviche. Halibut ceviche, in particular. Any firm, mild-flavored white … Continue reading →

I made the mistake of skimming the news this morning. That is not a particularly happy way to start the day. I want to retreat to my isolated lighthouse—the retreat that will keep me safe from a world that is … Continue reading →

Yesterday’s visit with a stand-in radiologist (mine has been away for several days) ended with me viewing images (from a CT scan, I presume) taken concurrently with my radiation treatment. The doctor showed me the area, in my mid- and … Continue reading →

Yesterday was the birthday of a woman I hired about forty years ago while I was employed at my first association job. As I have done for most, if not all. of those forty  years, I sent her a birthday … Continue reading →

Calendar year 2025 began yesterday with spectacular celebrations and unfathomable carnage—expressions of love and hope at one end of the spectrum, hatred and despair at the other. Around the globe, people observed a fresh beginning one moment and mourned the … Continue reading →

For some, today is another moment in the eternal (r)evolution of time. For others, this is the first day of an unknowable future. And for others still, this day constitutes fermentation; an acidic brew from which history will at some … Continue reading →

Jimmy Carter made it to 100. I wonder how the world would be different today if he had been elected to a second term as President, instead of losing to a Hollywood actor? We’ll never know. But a superb creative … Continue reading →

My moral opposition to the death penalty may not necessarily apply to all people who are…or deserve to be…given the sentence. But the phrase “death penalty” probably should not apply in such circumstances, either. Perhaps “vengeful freshening” would be a … Continue reading →

The primary results of a Google search for “how to overcome regret and guilt” include questionable “answers” sponsored by religious-based entities, along with sales pitches by companies and organizations that profit from “treating” emotional pain.  Once those results have been … Continue reading →

Guerneville, California had a population in 2040 of roughly 4,500; about the same as it was twenty years earlier. Its population peaked at 6,300 in 2032, but rapidly declined after Skazer Tartman became the community’s chief of police. Until that … Continue reading →

If memory serves me correctly—which often it fails to do—I have not read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Before I get into more about that book, though, it occurs to me that a non-memory, such as I claim about … Continue reading →