Awake at 4:30. Something is awry. Sleep again. Restless. Waking, as I try to roll over. Armor back. Trying to sit up. Burning thighs. Bristling, twitching legs. So many of them. What’s happening? Lifting my head to see. Throwing the covers off. My body appears in brown sections – my abdomen, divided and ridged. My […]
Working for Pay vs. Working for Work
How to interpret a line like that? Working for “Pay” vs. Working for “Work?” It could mean any number of things – including the distinction between working at a job purely for income, working at a job because it’s what you love (regardless of compensation), or the way I intended it – the work involved […]
Snoring
It strikes fear in the hearts of lovers and newlyweds. Irritation in weary married couples. Arguments from siblings on vacation, forced to share a tiny room. Snoring. No make-up? No worries. Snoring was all I could think about, pondering my first entire night with a new… friend. It wasn’t fear of waking in the morning, […]
Chicken Soup
“He’s been in bed for two days,” says the older brother. “Doing what?” I ask. “Dunno,” is the reply. “Could you give me a few specifics? Any television or piano? Was he on the computer?” “Dunno,” his brother says again, as I open the door and look in. My younger son rolls his eyes toward […]
Traffic calming. $138 later, I’m not calm.
Just a few years back, in my leafy little burb, my pocket of proprietor’s paradise, near my 1400 square feet in desirable location-location-location, the proverbial “they” began a project. A “Traffic Calming Project.” Calming, I thought to myself. Traffic calming at that. It had to be a euphemism for something subterranean and a little less […]
Sex in San Francisco?
I was packing until midnight. Television until after one a.m. to fall asleep, finally. Then up at six, shower, dog, repacking. . . Enough clothes for a week, and it’s only a long weekend. My hair, wet. Now headed to the station. And they’re showing previews of The Taking of Pelham 123, the remake. In […]
The more things change, the more they stay the same… Huh?
I woke with the dog scratching at my door, as usual. Her needs first, then my own. Even before coffee. Rather like kids – their needs first. Those needs are initially physical, and also emotional. Needs that evolve. Becoming more affective, more instructive, more logistical. By the time we’re dealing with adolescence, things have shifted […]
Coffee. Pasta. Oh Christ, another day.
The coffee’s hot. Black. Strong. My drug of choice. FLASHBACK: I used to joke “I like my coffee the way I like my men – hot, black, and strong.” But that was before the age of political correctness. Before the 80s. My permed hair. Shoulder pads. Pumps with toe cleavage. By the early 90s I […]