It happens slowly, the adustments. I walk him with a very loose grip on the leash, and pull up the slack so it doesn't tangle around his left front paw. When it does, he stops and lifts a foot for me to make the extraction. He can't hold it up for very long, because he's already compensating ( Read more... )

I finished writing something personal for the GMP: The Circumcised Poet and Other Tales. It's one of these pieces I make an effort to write since Lisa suggested I needed to get more of my voice into my blog, which unite some of the themes I publish on The Good Life and tell a story. I wrote another one, Walking Around Shirtless, not long ago, that' ( Read more... )

Just watched "The Seventh Seal" for the first time, and found it brilliant.

You can read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. This is just some of what I responded to, in the movie and in the prevailing criticism on the Wiki page today.

( synopsis: an excellent movie about religion for existentialists, cut for spoilers )

I often think of Sisyphus' happiness, because Kevin alerted me, years ago, to the fact that Camus said we should imagine Sisyphus is happy. I never read about why he thought that until tonight. Here are some links ( Read more... )

So I dream of writing my memoir. I see some authors who do nothing but memoir: that's their genre, not just one title and you're done. I write little bits. But mainly I write to my friends these days, or to anyone who wants to write back. Remember Mr. Va Jay Jay? He must have sensed that he couldn't get more without giving something, so he wrote me ( Read more... )

I'm going on Facebook a little more often lately, since I am finding so many people there that I want to (re-)connect with. A few days ago, a woman came up to me at the meat counter and told me that she'd found me through Facebook, and that she worked in my old office. We got to bond a little over how meshuganah it is there, and I got a timely ( Read more... )

Read this just now in The New Yorker, August 11 & 18 issue, and immediately wanted to share it with Kevin. Anyone who's ever wanted to die and doesn't now will understand.

( Trouble, by Matthew Dickman )

Furry grim reaper?
Cat who lives in a nursing home has an uncanny knack for predicting when patients are about to die

Our own nursing home had a cat until sometime last year when she disappeared, breaking the heart of the resident who called her his. The younger of our two housecats is also named Oscar, like the cat in the story.

On grocerylists, the mod, uproar, posted a link to grocerylists.org, a site devoted to grocery lists: found and owned. I'm most impressed that they'll be publishing a whole book of grocery lists. I'm sure there's a market among people, such as myself and other members of grocerylists, who enjoy the voyeuristic thrill of peering into other people's shopping baskets ( Read more... )

A couple thoughts on words ( Read more... )