I was up this morning at a little past seven. I fixed breakfast. I washed dishes. I paid bills. I talked with my mother for about an hour when she came over. I wrote a while. About an hour ago, I lunched on peanut-butter crackers, mixed nuts and Diet Coke. I played my guitar for …
Category: Life
I Automatically Avoid the Automatic
Eighty percent of the phone calls I receive on my “land line,” as opposed to my “outer-space line,” are for no good reason. Here’s a general rule of thumb: If I need something, I must deal with a recording: If you have a billing inquiry, press 1. If you have a service issue, press …
Life by the Numbers
I’m 56. What does the number mean to me? It was the number associated with the race-car driver Jim Hurtubise, who, in addition to his occasional brilliance, was the Don Quixote of the Indianapolis 500 because, for a number of years, “Herk” tried to qualify a front-engined roadster after low-slung, rear-engined designs had come to …
No One Learns from the Learned
When did we stop believing people who know a lot? It’s everywhere. People are not dissuaded in the least to learn that 97 percent of scientists believe climate change is a major crisis. Person at the grocery store (or on Facebook): “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” Me: “How much do you know about …
Literary Chili
Sometimes, here amid life in paradise, the sparks just don’t fly. I’ve been buying time all day, and it’s just about to exceed my credit line. Yeah, that one, too, but what I’ve been doing today is little things to bide my time until that great, daily burst of creative force arrives, shaking the dishes …
Peering Past the Humdrum
I didn’t plan to be up this morning writing a blog. A car wouldn’t start across the field, so I got up at 5:30 to give my sister a ride to work. When I got back home, I realized trying to go back to sleep was futile, so I went the other way and put …
Phases and Stages
I’m going through a phase. It’s not numbered. It wasn’t “phased in.” It’s not a change of life. It’s decades past puberty and, I hope, a good deal ahead of dementia. I’m probably the last person on earth who would declare it maturity, a concept about which I have been in denial since it seemed …
Just Another Motel Morning
When I walked into the lobby, my first impression was that the woman was mentally deficient. The second was that she was emotionally unbalanced. The third was that she was chemically unbalanced. Valentine’s Day is not all sweetness and light. According to the woman behind the desk, the biggest bunch of drunks you ever saw …
Fight the Good Fight
What won’t we do? We hold the Super Bowl in the open air of wintertime New Jersey. We hold the Winter Olympics at a beach resort. We hold an outdoor NHL match in Los Angeles. What won’t we think? We glance at our backyards and proclaim that climate change is over. We think guns will …
Suddenly Crazy for Coffee
I’d hate to face the barren waste without a cup of coffee. Hot, black, coffee (coffee). I apologize for besmirching the reputation of the Sons of the Pioneers and, for that matter, water. Cool, clear, water (water). For the majority of my life, I didn’t drink coffee. Then I started drinking it on those rare …
Nightrider's Lament 