Holy Week has come and gone and I have to confess (no pun intended) that it ended almost literally with a whimper. I volunteered to come in the Monday evening after Palm Sunday in order to do the Intercession prayer. It was a simple, stripped down service adhering closely to the Book of Common Prayer and very much like Morning Prayer, held in the ( Read more... )

Last Saturday, Pale male helped me break my Pandemic length fasting from indoor dining drinking by bravely crossing the East River to have drinks at the City Point food court near DeKalb Avenue. The city-wide ban had been lifted for less than a week, but the cellar kiosks and booths were doing a booming business ( Read more... )

Pale Male was supposed to be my warden when I got finished at the proctologist's. But, the doctor's waiting room no longer permitted a lot of seating so I was practically ordered to sign myself out. Pale had already garnered a car to drive down from West 96th Street to pick me up. I couldn't decide what to do until I sat down and as it turned out, ( Read more... )

I'd like t begin this entry by saying this was the best Christmas ever. I'd like to. I'm tempted. But, of course, Christmas has fundamentally changed for us now that both our parents have passed away. Mom is the person who kept us in touch with each other. Mom is the person we traveled through snow storms to see at this time of year: Read more... )

I have at least two lengthy dreams a night. The first occurs somewhere around 2:am and I almost never bother to write it down or remember it; I'm too intent on falling back to sleep. The second occurs just before waking for good. This morning's seems to be a continuation of Wednesday's session with Sumner during which I dug pretty deeply into ( Read more... )

I could write a book or at least a very modest screenplay about the kids of St. Michael's. They are a diverse group. Rambunctious. Too soon to tell which ones will blossom into Muses - if, any. But, they are certainly of an age where they - and their parents (usually, the mother) - collectively demand more than their share of attention ( Read more... )

Two weeks ago, it was the unbearable lightness of the half-empty hotel bar; yesterday, it was the ineluctable goodness of a coffee café. This is not to be confused with a Starbucks. Definitely not ( Read more... )

Crosby must be in town by now. I can feel it. I spent the better part of this afternoon stalking Washington Heights where I'm pretty sure his favorite Chinese restaurant is located. It was a blisteringly hot day but it took only a few moments to imagine seeing him among the throng of largely poor, Hispanic people populating the sidewalks along Juan ( Read more... )

My college has this annual lecture series that it sponsors and I think they must actually have a lot of trouble finding people to fill the seats because attending a lecture on a school night is probably the last thing a current undergraduate would want to do and so many faculty live off-campus. It's not like the old days where a professor could ( Read more... )

The Purple Yam is a wonderful little restaurant on Cortelyou Road, which is on the border between Midwood and Flatbush in Brooklyn. They specialize in Filipino cuisine and though I haven't a terribly sophisticated palate when it comes to the Pacific islands, I came away from the experience willing to try it again ( Read more... )