It rolls around every year about this time, the annual men's conference I attend in the upper Midwest, and the only real difference is this sort of preview, lunch with one of the likely attendees currently in town with his wife.  I should have known that on this August day the San Francisco skies would be dark, fog swirling...in a normal city giving every indication of rain.  But of course, not here.  The only danger comes from the parking brigade sweeping the streets around South Read more [...]

'The first windstorm, and they blow right over.  It's like the roots are in nothing.  Just made up, artificial landscape.'  This from Bruce, fellow first-year university student, speaking of the effects of desert breezes on recently planted saplings at the University of California, Riverside.  He had a point, and I knew what he meant, but something in his rancor struck me personally.  It may have been artificial, Southern California, but it was home.  We were either Read more [...]

'But she can't just stop.  You have to taper off.  No.  I understand.  But it's not up to Julie.'The woman in front of me traipsing down Crane Street has a mobile phone clamped to her ear, the width of her sidewalk-blocking hips swaying from curb to apartment lawn.'But that's what I'm saying.  It's wrong to just stop.  She wants to reduce the dosage.  Yeah.  Yeah.  But what does her doctor say?'It has been a long day.  If this woman only walked at Read more [...]

Foggy will do, but slow might be better.  It is what happens when one begins a day with the effects of Walgreens sleeping tablets wearing off.  The good news is that this has been preceded by adequate sleep.  The bad news?  The fogginess, of course.  But above all, the night from hell that sparked it all.That night being preceded by a day that left stuff behind the way election flyers, free bags of soap or breakfast cereal, not to mention coupons for the local pizza joint, Read more [...]

It was 1967, and it was the summer, and there is absolutely no mistaking this, because it was to be my last summer in a sense.  Late in the next spring, a bullet and six months in hospitals brought an end to summers.  And the following one, well, it also was not recognizable as a season.  So, this was my last normal summer, and how genuinely normal it was...that is an interesting, not to mention haunting, question.August.  It must have been August.  And I am almost certain Read more [...]

The day dawns grim.  Distances between all points have stretched and loosened at the same time.  A clear syrup fills all spaces.  I rise from my bed and commence swimming through it.  I don't want to make tea.  I don't want to drink tea.  I don't want to do anything I am currently doing.  Hibernation, suspense of time and animate world, that would be good.  Still, the tea is good.  And incredibly, I do find myself under the the showerhead, which is also Read more [...]