Category Archives: Uncategorized

I remember my late sister’s outrage at the lyrics of the theme song for the 1970 film, “M*A*S*H.” She was a volunteer at the time for a suicide hotline. The lyrics of the first few stanzas of “Suicide is Painless” … Continue reading →

Who in your sphere of friends keep secrets that, if  told, could break hearts, ruin marriages, destroy friendships, shatter families, or otherwise upend moderately tranquil worlds? Perhaps the person in your sphere of friends who keeps such potentially explosive secrets is … Continue reading →

Between unsuccessful attempts to fall asleep…and moments in which consciousness finally eluded me…last night, I escaped the bonds of rationality and reason. During those in-between moments when I was neither awake nor asleep, my mind took me to a point … Continue reading →

Most people on Earth are “better off” in some way than at least some other people. Some have access to more food. Others live in more secure or better shelter. The surroundings of some are more reliably safe. Others can … Continue reading →

My affinity for, or interest in, things Icelandic is evident in the fact that sixteen posts on this blog mention Iceland (seventeen including this one). It’s a disease, I think, this longing for immersion in cultures to which I have … Continue reading →

No matter where I seek it, I cannot find it. Silence. The absence of sound. There was a time when I could find it. But no more. Not since my heartbeat, with its drumbeat in my ears, began interrupting my peace. … Continue reading →

Whispers. Strained voices. Anxious sighs. Stifled sobs. The sharp staccato raps of heels pounding on the cobblestone street, their echoes remaining long after the tear-drenched woman rounds the corner. Long after the dejected man shuffles away. Who were they, that … Continue reading →

When you hear, on a recording, the sound of a guitarist’s fingers scrape the strings, you’re hearing a sound unpurified to an extent that all of the reality of the musician’s engagement with the instrument remains. The connection between musician … Continue reading →

Our dinner last night met and exceeded our expectations. My dozen oysters on the half shell were enormous and very tasty. Janine’s dozen fried oysters were at least as good. The conversation with our friends was delightful and my Neulasta … Continue reading →

I remember the saga of Baby Jessica, the child who fell into a well in her aunt’s yard in Midland, Texas in the late 1980s. It seemed like every person in the U.S. and perhaps around the world held our … Continue reading →

I read a reference yesterday to a bumper sticker. It read as follows: “Pray for Trump—Psalm 109:8.” My biblical illiteracy being what it is, I had to look it up. It reads: 8 Let his days be few; and let … Continue reading →

I have not had a pet since I was a high school kid. The last dog I had wasn’t really my dog. It was my brother’s dog, I guess. Or maybe it belonged to my parents. The last dog I … Continue reading →

Twice since I deactivated my Facebook account a week ago, I absent-mindedly clicked on the Facebook logo on my desktop, then clicked again when the pre-populated login screen popped up. Instantly, I was on Facebook. When I decided to deactivate, … Continue reading →

Blogs aren’t sacrosanct places, but those created and tended for personal, versus commercial, purposes tend to enjoy at least moderate degrees of privacy and, when comments are made, civility and respect. Maybe readers of personal blogs are conscious of the … Continue reading →

After weighing the matter at some length, I deactivated my Facebook account a while ago. The downside is that some people with whom I’ve developed what I hope has been a mutually beneficial relationship probably will disappear from my daily … Continue reading →

The Baby Boom Generation in the U.S. grew up believing that the United States had developed into an irrepressible force in technology, among other things. We were taught (brainwashed might be a better term) that U.S. innovation and commitment were … Continue reading →

Acknowledging one’s flaws is a necessary step in erasing or overcoming them. But giving them too much attention is like fertilizing noxious weeds. I’ll try treating mine as lessons instead of gardens.

During 2018, I watched as most of my expressed wishes for the year (see below, beneath the separator line) perished in the suffocating smog of angry right-wing resurgence. Around mid-year, my broad, world-view perspective narrowed as a brother was hospitalized … Continue reading →

It’s Christmas morning, 2018. Our plans for the day are simple: friends will come to our house at 10 to deliver a nice Christmas breakfast. Late this afternoon, we will visit other friends who have invited us over for a … Continue reading →

This morning, as I read about the popularity of the vada pav in Mumbai (Bombay), my mind returned to the place I’ve been advised by so many to avoid: a busy street corner or tiny strip center where I would … Continue reading →

I make periodic stops at a blog entitled Hallucinations, written by Shruthi Rao, a young woman who lives in Bangalore, a high-tech center in southern India. The subjects of her posts range as widely as mine, perhaps even wider. But … Continue reading →

In the absence of data, I can only guess. I am simply a surmiser, a theorist who hypothesizes and speculates, a man who deduces and presumes based on the logic of conjecture. Yet my inferences carry the nuclear weight of … Continue reading →

Evidence validates the fact that all the broken pieces fit together. It accomplishes nothing more, does it? But doesn’t it show, too, that fragments once meant more together than they do apart? A sphere clutches to all the answers until … Continue reading →

As I look out my window this morning, the landscape seems to have been painted with a thick brush, heavily charged with grey and brown and ochre pigments. My eyes search for familiar shapes amidst the abstractions of branches and … Continue reading →

Strange dreams last night. I was in a  Japanese shipyard, where ships were being launched from an enormous automated contraption that suspended huge cargo ships along a track perpendicular to the waterfront. At the  very end of the track, the … Continue reading →