My title paraphrases one of the best show titles of all time: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Did you know that this was in turn ripped off from an apocryphal Borscht Belt shaggy-dog joke? Well, so they say. I can’t actually find any source confirming …
New Year’s Day is the western world’s touchstone for resolution making. There’s plainly something about that 01/01 date that appeals to many of us, like a celestial reset button: Press here to change your life! But not for all of us, or at least not for all our lives. For …
I was just telling you a bit about the delightful Milo in The Phantom Tollbooth. He receives a purple tollbooth, some coins to pay tolls with, and a map of the places served by this particular tollbooth. He immediately observes they aren’t anywhere served by the Jersey Turnpike… (Well, I …
This past week, I’ve been meticulously cataloging Timothy’s music: collections, fake books, sheet music, instructional books with varying degrees of comprehensiveness… A few surprised me: The Rodgers & Hart Songbook? Paul Simon’s Greatest Hits? A couple made me smile, like Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” and The Bumper Book of Pub Favourites. …
It is a difficult enough thing to do, to go through one’s beloved’s belongings after they die. Clothes that still smell faintly of their cologne (patchouli, in Timothy’s case). Diaries with memos about dates you shared, appointments you didn’t, gifts given to you for anniversaries or birthdays. Items you know …
Inspired by a New York Times Smarter Living column last January, and knowing I had a multitude of frogs to consume in 2019 (banking, vehicles, books, computer accounts, & etc & etc), I bought myself a set of Best Self journals. Once in hand, of course, I had to figure …
I should start by explaining that Tim and I had been going to our beloved Dr Tess for almost a decade — a very long relationship for me and a dentist. I’d find a dentist (and even more important, a staff hygienist) I liked and trusted not to do me …
I came home from work today feeling thoroughly under the weather. Yet I thought I should do something productive before taking to my couch (or the almost-Eames chair) with a hot-water bottle and a martini. (Timothy was often amazed at the revitalizing tonic effects of gin, with or without actual …
