It sounds strange to say I’ve gotten too fragile for music, but that really might be it. It’s been several years now like that, the surface tension holding, iridescent and moving along, sometimes floating effortlessly, sometimes bouncing in wonky directions, strong and pliable, but avoiding the pointy things that threaten to …
Goodbye to 2016, that stripped us of our delusions and facades. It stripped us of our right to be optimistic without doing the work to prove that hope reasonable. When even in mourning, we decided to fight. It became OK (finally – phew!) to say out loud our most bigoted, selfish, perhaps long-suppressed thoughts: …
Burning, or burial? It’s a real question, and it matters what I think because I am his friend, and I am one of the people who will care for him as he fights to stay alive in the face of a cancer that will win. This kind always wins, so …
I noticed again today, as I have for the last few weeks, that I actually know things once in a while. That must mean at least two things: I’m getting older, and I’ve been paying attention. Not always deliberately paying attention, that’s for sure. But you don’t have to be Julia Child …
Soon it will be June 11th, a year since I lost you, Betty, to old age, and what has often since then felt like a selfish rush to get the unbearable over with. It could have been June 12th, or July 6th maybe. I could have delayed this anniversary if I’d been able to …
Robin Williams killed himself yesterday. We are shocked, stunned, hurt, and so very sad – but we aren’t surprised. We can’t possibly be surprised. Anyone familiar with the miserable illness that took him knows that every day is a brave decision. Everyone gets tired. The question is always how soon you’ll …
It’s something early in the morning – I always wake up between 4:30 and 5:30 these days – and the loudest noise outside of my head is the aquarium filter pouring water down into the tank. The goddamned thing serves as an eternal reminder of my failings as a fish …
There is supposed to be some rhythm to these things, I hear – an “at least once a something” schedule that one is on for posting, so that one’s readers need not be disappointed by one’s sloth-like writing habits. And besides, it’s What One Does. Can’t argue with that. During …
I’m starting to lift out of this grey place I’ve been in now for almost three months. I know this because a few days ago I found utter joy in teaching Addie to tolerate me balancing food on her head. She is not a dog with a huge sense of …
Howl at the Moon vocals Unfinished rough draft – click on the title to hear it Early yesterday morning just before dawn I found him, my partner, lover, and friend who’d been lost to me for so long. He was there in the song he’d played the day before, and that …
