Ritual Healing
What are we to do with our time, now that the closets are cleaned out, we’ve spoken by phone or email to our beloveds and assured ourselves they are okay…
The Grievies
A few days ago, I had to put my beloved dog, Jackson Browne, to sleep. I'm writing about it, as I do everything important to me, and will post something…
The Toilet Paper Pixie Strikes!
The objects of our desire Some of you may have read my first essay on this revived/new blog, posted April 1, called “A Toilet Paper Confession.” After it was posted,…
Farewell Films
The other day I taught an online class for the seminary I attended—the Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley, California—which has shifted all of its classes online, like every other higher education…
Beth’s Blessing
I have been thinking about Beth lately. Beth was my neighbor in the Berkeley hills for a few years in the mid-2000s. She was, in a way, my first hospice…
The Distraction Reaction
Definition of distraction: (1) a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else. “The woman found COVID-19 a distraction from her domestic duties.” Similar: diversion, interruption, disturbance,…
A Blessing and a Curse
Life goes on. That glib trope we all seem to spout occasionally, usually after expounding upon the vicissitudes of life, seemed an appropriate title for this blog, given the threat…
From MS-DOS to Zoom!
I was first tapped to do professional work on a computer as a graduate assistant in the journalism program at University of North Texas in 1980. I walked into the…
Salad Dressing
One of the effects of sheltering in place, as most of us must do these days, is that our day-to-day routines—which we barely even notice most of the time—disappear into…
Let Us Eat Cake!
I was driving east on Agua Fria in Santa Fe, having passed Osage Avenue, when I made the decision. I was going to have a piece of that coconut cake…