IF I HAD KNOWN THAT our galleon would collide with a freighter, I would have worn a life jacket. The time was February 1988. Through a curious series of circumstances, I had signed aboard the replica galleon Golden Hinde II…
Category: Living
Each moment is different. Here are some of mine.
Wee Little Me
NEAR THE TOP OF THE Beloved Things list are landscapes that make me feel small. Deserts, mountains, beaches, redwood forests, prairies — anything requiring a wide perspective with which to take it all in, and which likewise reminds me of…
Praying for Strength, and Other Sure Things
IS G?D GRANTING FAVORS, OR am I just fooling my brain into higher functioning? That’s the question I ask myself every time I pray for either greater strength (read: endurance) or greater understanding. That’s about all I ever pray for[1],…
Adventures of a Lidded Yid
“ARE YOU A PRIEST?” ASKED the workman as I passed through a local condoplex. “No, just a Jew,” I answered, smiling. “That’s good,” he said, also smiling, and went back to his repairs. He was not the first person who…
(Shave and) a Haircut, 12 Bucks!
WE HAD LIVED IN SONOMA for a third of my lifetime before I visited Allen’s Hair House, about a half-block south of the Plaza. I had become fed up with being charged $20 for a chop job by my previous…
5 Thoughts: Religious Agnosticism
0. EVERYONE HAS BELIEFS/KNOWLEDGE about the nature of the (inner) world; while I don’t much like labels attached to such things it seems fitting to call mine “Religious Agnosticism.” Here’s a handful of relevant definitions (partly because a handful of…
Fie on Death, and the Pale Horse He Rode In On
He was a man. Take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again. — William Shakespeare, Hamlet WHEN I FIRST MOVED INTO an Oakland apartment in 1986 with John Woods “Wheels” “Spoonhead” “Calvin Biggins” Wheeler,…
“When young people ask me about death, I tell them: ‘We die a little every day. When you get to be my age, you get used to it.'”
— Near-centenarian Richard Meyers
Overheard in Sonoma
(For Leah Garchik’s back-page-of-the-San Francisco Chronicle feature.) Ms. Garchik, I was walking on the west side of Sonoma Plaza this morning when I passed a middle-aged touristy couple, just as the man was saying to his female companion, “Someday, she’ll…
Pithyism #65+
ONCE YOU TURN 30 (OR thereabouts), no one calls you an “old soul.”
#oldpunksneverdie
Never thought I’d hear Safeway’s in-house music channel play “London Calling” this morning. But I sang along with it anyway.
Vive La Difference
From Josee Wolff, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary: “…The pessimist observes a situation, generalizes about the bad aspects, and interprets them as a permanent and constant feature. In contrast, the optimist observes the same situation and sees the bad aspects,…