Strange days. I resent the few appointments I have. Today: book publicist, computer consultant, men's group. Yet with the 9 AM departure of Lorna, chief among the morning helpers on Team Filipina, the balance of the day looks frighteningly blank. What am I to do now, this yawning moment all emptiness and uncertainty? Well, I could prepare for the phone chat with the publicist. Or I could head to Peet's. For there is nothing like caffeination except more caffeination. So, Caffeine Nation, here I come. But Read more [...]

It must have been in high school biology that I learned the definition of life. Significantly, I have forgotten all the essential attributes except for one: movement. If you want to be a life form, you have to be on the move. If your ambition is to be a crystal, no sweat. You can hang out with the other crystals all you want. Which means you will get taught, as a subject, in Physics and Chemistry. Is that your crowd? You decide. Thing is, if you want to be in the biology textbooks, you'd better shake Read more [...]

Things are so much clearer, and certainly starker, at 4 AM, that it's a wonder I don't awaken at this hour every day. Gosh, but it's informative. Particularly if you go with the psychic flow, a course for which I opt this particular day. It has become something of a trend, this waking too early. A lot on my mind? Or not enough in my bed? Jane being very much under the career gun, and not always under the covers. And since we seem to be partners in sleep and, as a 4 AM e-mail might reveal, also Read more [...]

A blank slate, that is the day. One could say that I have awakened too early. Or that I am awake to things...too early. Whatever, once Jane has walked me...and this, it must be said, I have in common with her dogs...I find myself at a loss. My emotional state being what it is, I am at a loss for Jane. How could she go to work and leave me here? As for the dogs, let us not be flippant. Jane is a nurturer. If she loves a mammal and it needs walking, trust me, she is there. Okay, so I do not require Read more [...]

So damned if I didn't roll into the sanctuary at Keddem Congregation, Palo Alto, yesterday and find 50 or 60 (but who's counting?) in the audience waiting to hear me read from my book, Dance Without Steps. And what a kick. I mean, this isn't exactly a hostile crowd. Friends suggested I might want to keep some of the proceeds from book sales - I sold 25 - and the answer was a firm 'no.' After all, I am physically and temperamentally limited in what I can do for any group. You can't be a Jew alone. Read more [...]

Strange, the way forces converge. One moment you are reading Zadie Smith's On Beauty, and the next moment you are inside the novel. The mundane facts look like this. At 6 PM, having despaired of accomplishing anything else by way of book promotion...my current 'job'...what was there to do but prop up my feet and bask in the fading light of day? I am a fading-light kind of guy, after all. Obsessed with the wearing out and running down of things, particularly time. So it is a bittersweet part of Read more [...]