If you love the show "Sex and the City," as I do, you might remember the scene in which Carrie tells her friends, "I can't make it tonight, I have to go visit my boyfriend (played by David Duchovny) at the asylum."  I was thinking about that recently as I visited… Read full post »

I went to the eye doctor yesterday.  For a while now, I've been having a lot of trouble seeing at night.  Night highway driving has become like driving through a blizzard for me: I focus on the only thing I can really see well, the back of the car in front… Read full post »

These days, when I look back, it seems I am often picturing our kitchen.  You see, one of the last things we did together as a "family" was to renovate our kitchen.  We had bought the house several years before, and through working hard and saving money, we finally had the… Read full post »

Aside from her aw-shucks butchy cuteness, her magnetic charisma, and the many ways in which we just "clicked," one of the reasons I found Jo so appealing was that she represented the possibility of family to me.  Family was something I had lost about ten years before, at the age of… Read full post »

In response to two requests, I am posting a translation of the lyric in my bio.  It's sung by one of my favorite obscure singers, Chavela Vargas (Isabel Vargas Lizano, born in Costa Rica in April 1919, and has lived most of her life in Mexico).  Chavela sings mostly rancheras, traditional… Read full post »

In a non-response to the Open Call for Thanksgiving recipes, I offer this:

 I give thanks that, even though I have lost my spouse, my in-laws, and our Thanksgiving traditions of spending days happily cooking and baking and nights playing poker and drinking heavily, I have regained my sanity and… Read full post »

Yesterday I got an email from an old friend, Julie.  I hadn't spoken with her in months, not since the days when I was still clearing out and packing up in my old house, the one the ex got, back in May when Julie's life was still moving on in its… Read full post »

"And the coldest bed I've found does not hold one, but it will hold three.  I hope you never have to know what that can mean." -- Ferron*

 * sometimes I think, Too much Ferron on one page.  Then I think, nah, not possible. 

Where I Sleep

The same bed, the… Read full post »

So there we are, out having dinner at our favorite romantic Italian restaurant.  We had just left her place of work and spent a few minutes browsing in a bookstore, where of course I had to sit down after flipping through a few calendars.  It had gotten to the point, after… Read full post »

It's been a really long time since I've tried to write, but so many have inspired me here on OS, including Ester Amy Fischer's recent piece; years of following darkside's story, which mirrors my own in some eerie ways and is different in so many others; all the brilliant offerings of… Read full post »