As I have delved even deeper into the music and writings of Leonard Cohen since his passing, searching for a particle of solace in what has been for me a profound loss, I am struck, again and again, by the thought that we simply did not deserve him, this sage of a man, nor his …
There are not enough benzos and bottles o’ wine in the world to blank out the Franking obsessive nightmare of frantic online poll-of-polls watching and the dread of creeping fascism as half the electorate happily chest-thumps its way to the prospect of fewer freedoms, and lunatics with guns standing proudly in front of bathrooms to …
I took my frail old-girl kitty to the vet’s this morning for scheduled dental x-rays I somehow knew in my gut would be ugly in their revelations. And they were, even more than I had bargained for, absolutely crushing: a mass growing fast up near one eye. I thought she would at least be going …
Monday. And how. As I’m spilling pet food all over the counter with frantic animals underfoot first thing this morning, the TV tells me that the man running for the most important office in the free world, the man who should recall in ANYONE who is paying even half-ass attention the terrifying trappings of the …
So I could really use a whomping-big dose of joy about now; tough, tough couple of days. That said, what does Mr. Mush for Brains promptly do in such a case? He opens, and reads through, his preferred aggregate-news site. News of the minute. News of the hour. News of the day. News of the country. …
There is nothing, just nothing they can giveyou, not for this. You’ve set the timethey will arrive with needles, somethingliquid clear and final, andsome sorries, surelyso the suffering will go out But for now, you markthe labored rise of ribs, furfloated into every cornerof your life, there will beso much less to clean, feelyour own breaths, halting there is …
Y’know those commercials for prescription drugs for this or that chronic ailment, ads inevitably ending with an “ask your doctor about,” and then promptly launching into a whole litany of horrors (in some patients, shedding of vital organs may occur, etc.)? Those wretched causative unwanteds, plus my own propensity for reacting negatively to, well, just about …
Increasingly, when you step outside, everything at first seems kinda still, and then … and then this warm little wind whips up, licking around your heels, tripping you up, before next encircling you with brutish power, a cyclone of swirling heat dropped hard atop you, your skin and eyes searing, your vision blurred, your way …
Never have given half a rip for country music, as country music is today, all truck-lovin’ light-beer bros in over-styled cowboy hats gulping on the last note or two to get it to twang. But Merle Haggard. Now, Merle Haggard. Deeply grateful I once got to interview this raucous gem of a man, by phone, …
The roller-coaster ride of old pets, another dip, another rise. Took my dear old Bug boy in today to our outstanding vet office, East Carolina Veterinary Service, sure in that awful down-in-the-bones way it was over, or the start of over, and even the vet was bracing me for the worst of news. Old boy has …