Category: Life
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The Last Coffee
A few mornings ago, me and Marilyn walked to Abraco Coffee first thing. It’s on 7th St between 1st and 2nd Ave. It’s a rather unassuming place from the outside. You walk down a few stairs to go inside. Behind the bar, I saw the same barista that gave me coffee the first time I…
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Watching a man die
In his book Slaughter House 5, Kurt Vonnegut wrote the sentence “So it goes” 106 times. But before I get into that: The other day I was watching David Letterman’s interview with Dave Chappelle. And they were talking about Dave’s response to the George Floyd murder and his special called 8:46. And Dave said “The…
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Alone, Together
I just finished reading a graphic novel from the library called Seek You: A Journey Through American Loneliness. Quite an apt book to be published in 2021, written and illustrated by Kristen Radtke. It walks through the psychology and reality of loneliness in America. I’d recommend reading the entire thing, but on page 206, a…
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A New Perspective
The first five times I watched Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, I walked away yearning to be just like Laurie. To have his confidence and cool and stature. And all his vests. But on the sixth watch, a year and a half after the fifth, I suddenly saw the movie differently. It wasn’t Laurie’s character I…
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The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, excerpts
“We, for every kind of reason, good and bad, are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion. It is not that we have anything against God, depth, and spirit. We would like these! It is just that we are habitually too preoccupied to have any of these show up on our radar screens. We are more busy…
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Words from Sondheim
As I assume you’ve long heard by now, Stephen Sondheim (writer of Into the Woods, Company, and Sweeney Todd among others) passed away last week. A hero and a pillar in American theater. On a plane, two days after his death, I watched Six by Sondheim on HBO. A documentary covering the life and career…
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In Praise of Chairs
I’m writing you from a chair. A large chair. A very large chair, all my own, taking up the corner of my room nearest the window. My feet are up, as it is a recliner. A very large, brown leather recliner that I bought from a woman named Heather on the internet. She was kind…
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Meeting Tom
I sat alone in my office for the day. Everyone else was out for this or that. The hours passed as I clicked and typed away, and finally I decided to get a breath of fresh air as midday dragged into afternoon. On my way out, I noticed the door of that small studio near…
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Your Conjugation Must Be Perfect
The other day I met a new acquaintance who is in the long and arduous process of learning English as their second language. And while talking with them, I had the uncomfortable realization that I had to keep reminding myself no, this person is not less intelligent than me. This person is not a child…
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Living Takes Practice
The world is so unbelievably large. And the nuances of living life are so wildly small. The mundanity of the every day to one can be the pinnacle of adventure to another. The smallest things can hold wonder. And the basic rules can bring anxiety. Like the sand crabs bubbling under the surface as the…