Catatonic For some reason, I don’t like cats. When I am around them and when they want to be social, they seem fine, but I am slightly put off by all the things that others generally like about cats. Independence seems to be a big cat theme. They amuse themselves and seem to be less gregarious creatures than not and seem inclined to live more solitary lives, jumping from here to there and then casually…
Sleeping With The Enemy No, I do not think of Kim as the enemy and yes, we sleep together every night. But there is someone else in the bed with me every night as it has been for twenty-seven years. That would be Mr. CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure), the machine that assists my nighttime breathing so that I do not snore nor have episodes of sleep apnea, which are shallow or paused breathing episodes…
Buck Naked The human form has inspired many artists and writers over the millennia, and yet, humans are the only species that have found it necessary to work hard to drape that form with coverings and clothing. From our perusal of the pages of National Geographic when we were young and rooting around in the basement, we learned that primitive man seemed less inclined to cover the human form as much as we in civilized…
Fiction or Not I have now written 52 pages of the new book I am writing that is somewhat outside my normal comfort zone. The book is a compilation and expansion on a series of stories about the peacetime high-jinx of a group of young military officers who share a house on Virginia Beach in the early 1960’s. That 52 pages represents the first draft of the Prologue and first three chapters. I keep saying…
COVID-Free At Last Last Saturday I had my second dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine and after only about an hour’s worth of chills and slightly elevated temperature, I have been fit as a fiddle. The event of the vaccination, which I did in the idyllic burg of La Jolla was really a non-event. I parked in a nice parking structure, walked on serene pathways following big COVID Vaccination signs to a large and airy building…
Hot and Heavy Today, which is Monday, February 22nd it is supposed to hit 78 degrees here on our hilltop. I don’t know why that surprises me other than to say that I am not yet totally acclimated to living here in Southern California. I started my day by driving to the local Hidden Meadows Market and getting a breakfast burrito for myself and an Asahi bowl for Kim, so clearly some parts of my…
Suspending Disbelief In the arena of the cinema, the breadth of realizable stories put on film is vast. There are entire genres of film in the SciFi and Fantasy categories that are quite popular. It is often said that the big hurdle these sort of films must cross is the ability to get the audience to suspend disbelief. Technically, this term is used for any sort of piece of fiction for which reality is not…
A Return to the Big Screen A few days ago I found myself getting caught up with two newly released movies and how to go about seeing them. In the past year, most of us have not been to the movies outside of our living rooms. That has probably not been a big deal to some who only went to movies infrequently anyway, but to someone like me who considers going to the movies to…
Raptors I Have Known The other day, Kim and I were coming home from an afternoon errand and, after stopping to pick up the mail, we were driving through our entry pillars when Kim shouted at me to look. I was somewhat taken aback and didn’t know what she was pointing to at to my left. Then I saw it. On the left stucco pillar there was a small red-tailed hawk. It was just sitting…
The Totems of My Life I am not certain why or how it has happened, but I am surrounded by totems. They mean everything and yet they mean nothing at all. Just this week, Kim gave me a birthday/anniversary/Valentines gift she had had made for me by her favorite gift store in New York, named Domus on West 44th Street in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. In Ancient Rome, a domus was a distinguished house…