Years ago, Stephen Sondheim wrote a song for a movie (The 7 1/2% Solution) about why 'I Never Do Anything Twice.' The idea was that repetition is dull, particularly if one is performing highly repetitive tasks, vis-à-vis working in a bordello. It's an amusing, mildly racy little number. And on my way home from Draeger's haute supermarket, it comes back to me. Why? Because I can see how in ways large and small, doing things two times, or 2000 times, weaves the fabric of life. Particularly a disabled Read more [...]

What is so rare as a day in...well, February, but one that occupies its own languid space? It seems that on alternative days I sleep well, then I don't sleep well at all, with a strange checkerboard pattern of stress and relaxation. This particular day, this languid day in February, I am superbly rested. Jane and I have had a rare day at home together. Nothing particularly pressing from her congregation. No big deadlines for me either...not that I have a lot. So how can a lazy day suddenly turn so Read more [...]

I have a friend in San Francisco with a progressive disability. Timing is everything, they say, and this applies to his condition. With my disability, I have the daily illusion of constancy. With his, no such delusion is possible. Things change for...let us call him John...at a noticeable clip. Perhaps not daily, but possibly weekly, and more certainly by the month. Still, my own disabled condition is worsening, if nothing else with age. And whatever the reality, there is the fear. How much longer Read more [...]

The best time to go to Costco, my mother used to say, is during the Super Bowl. Conversely, the best place to see the Super Bowl, I have determined, is Costco. For surely there is no better massing of enormous-screen TVs anywhere. Which is an utterly ridiculous statement, everyone knows...but everyone doesn't know what I don't know. I have not been inside a Costco for, oh, seven or eight years. And for reasons that are unclear, this fact began to gnaw at me. It seemed emblematic of my general Read more [...]

Having no real background in Judaism, I am particularly susceptible to opinions, views and attitudes. Such as the words of Leslie Bar, father of a close London friend, who once mused '...the chosen people. I wish they'd chosen someone else.' Which brings us to 'special needs.' And wishing I was a bit less special myself. Yet, when having an especially special neuromuscular picture, well, there's no getting around one's specialty. Which is to be immobilized like a ship frozen in place in the Bering Read more [...]

It is not unlike casting off, the beginning of another automotive voyage, backing onto the cracking expanse of concrete that is my suburban driveway. I manage to clear the oleanders without scratching my van another time. And we are off, Jane and I and the Dodge. Yes, I know that some people long for the open road. And perhaps for them the road does open. For me, it threatens to close at every turning. Is it the road to San Francisco or the road to ruin? There is only one way to know. At the Read more [...]