Anticipation
It’s not unusual for a holiday season to come and go without receiving any gifts, so I relish every little tidbit I get, including this notice from FedEx that something was en route.
Let reason win
About a year into the Trump presidency, the level of anger and hatred in the United States was starting to get to me. I wanted to promote the idea of people talking respectfully to each other about issues instead of jumping straight to hatred and yelling. My wonderful partner surprised me one day with the gift of the… Read More »
Afterlife
Whether from living in the horror-show of 2020 or because of the recent death of my father, my thoughts have been tending recently toward deeper topics than usual. Lately I’ve been thinking abut the nature of consciousness.
Philip Glass for the New Listener
So, you’ve heard of Philip Glass and want more. The list of Glass compositions and performances is very long, so choosing what to listen to next is not a trivial task. I’m here to help. This post is a curated list of the approachable Glass pieces that I recommend for those just starting in their shiny new Glass obsession.
Nature’s mandala
The other day I saw a huge, completely concentric, perfectly spiraled spiderweb right outside my kitchen window. In the center of this minor masterpiece was a large brown striped spider, hanging in the middle to wait for his prey.
Photo shoot: Macro mushroom
In the nearly 20 years I’ve lived in this home, I’ve encouraged the moss in my Pacific Northwest suburban home to completely take over my lawn. Perhaps it is this, or the complete lack of herbicides, or perhaps just dumb luck — but my yard seems to provide the ideal growing conditions for mushrooms. Last year, when I… Read More »
Photo shoot: Smokey light
2020 has been the year that everyone jokes can get no worse. Which of curse jinxed it.
Mother nature, or at least her complete schmuck of an illegitimate son Climate Change, decided to make things worse. Cue the weeks of soaring temperatures, add high winds, stir in a conflagration — and now much of the United States, especially the west, is on fire.
Everything happens for a reason: NOT
Like many people, I truly believe that everything happens for a reason. And that reason is … so you can use the experience to spark creative ideas. … so you can deepen your capacity for compassion. … so you can add to your catalog of experiences. … so you can appreciate the things you have.
The Coffee Scoop
My sister, Cindy, and I live on opposite ends of the country and rarely see each other. When my mother died in the Autumn of 2001, we each packed our bags and headed to Mom’s condo in Arizona. There we spent a week together to arrange and hold Mom’s memorial and to empty the place out. We needed… Read More »
My favorite YouTube channels
Since I wrote a long post listing my favorite TV shows, I thought I’d follow that up with another source of my screen time: YouTube. While there are many other channels I turn to, this post lists the YouTube channels that I watch with some regularity. Here’s a list of the topics in case you want to skip… Read More »
The high cost of the work-to-live treadmill
My mind broke a little bit today. Unable to sleep in the wee hours this morning, I [foolishly] picked up my phone and was browsing through a few social media outlets when I came upon a post that put into words something that I have very worriedly obsessed over for years. This worry has seemed so big, so… Read More »
TV Gems
I used to treat this as a shameful secret, but a few years ago I came out with the truth: I love to watch TV. As apparently lots of folks have extra time on their hands [I started writing this up during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020], I thought this was a good time… Read More »
The lasting effect of kindness
Recently I came across a document that is meaningful to me in several ways: the divorce document from January 1987 that finally ended my first marriage. As I held the papers in my hands, I smiled as it brought to mind something that, at first glance, seems unrelated.
Eagle demonstration
A number of years ago, my brother and I were driving toward town in Ilwaco, Washington. It was a crisp early-Autumn morning, and the sun was positioned just right so that everything was backlit. Just as we pulled up to a stop sign, a bald eagle swooped low in the sky in front of our car.
My spatial idiocy
Nothing spatial is intuitive for me. Up or down, above or below are clear. But when I encounter left or right, clockwise or counter-clockwise, east or west — I have to put intense effort into matching the word with a direction.