Organizing. . .

—From CB— Organizing: an essential activity for multi-billion dollar industries and for a superannuated geezer in California who’s trying to juggle six balls and not step on a cat. He’s extremely talented in the process of making lists and strategies, having done it...

Blizzard. . .

—From EF— I’ve managed to get back to writing on Book Two of the memoir and have eased into it by going back to its beginning and doing revision. I was feeling pretty strung out after Conrad’s bad fall and hospitalization, and reading about our winter of...

Self-exam. . .

—From CB— I’m not one to do a great deal of self-assessment. Self-involvement, yes, but not really evaluating the mechanism or its spirit. I’m much more interested in evaluating the third draft of my current novel. I tend to outsource my deeper feelings. That’s...

Little Things. . .

—From EF— Sometimes it’s the little things that surprise, that bring a tear, that suffuse with warmth. After his release from the hospital, it knocked me over to look up and see Conrad washing the dishes. Plunk, one more beautiful piece put back in the...

My Times in Hell. . .

Six days in London, and now flying out to visit our daughter in Tuscany. So far it’s been hell. Life, the old saw goes, is what happens when you’ve made other plans. Main problem: my foot. My fault in choosing the wrong shoes. After the third day, I’m walking in pain:...

Writing. . .

—From CB— We’re in the final stage of our novel DESSIE, reading aloud a chapter a day, and sometimes changing a comma, sometimes a paragraph. The intention is to finish before I go to Europe on Mar. 15. Why? It’s unpublishable—grim, funny, fits no genre, and if it...

—From EF— Last Sunday it was a wild and lovely day at the ocean, rain and wind but moderate enough for about a gazillion gulls to practice gliding in groups. We weren’t nuts, we stayed inside and had our picnic in the car, and got the added pleasure of watching...

DISMANTLEMENT. . .

 —From CB— The Facebook post screamed DISMANTLE THE STRUCTURES OF OPPRESSION! Good idea, I thought, even though it was only 8 a.m. and I hadn’t had my coffee. I could kick the can down the road forever, but the weather had cleared and this morning might be a good time...

Practicing Medicine. . .

—From EF— When I was in the seventh grade, I was sure that I would become an MD. I still have the little carefully-stapled booklet of all the detailed ink drawings I did that year of every damn bone in the body. I managed to ignore the cognitive dissonance of...

Getting Rid of It. . .

—From CB— At some point, accumulation becomes a curse. As one enters the age of the endgame—EF 82, CB 81—you begin to lie awake in the dark hearing the choir intone, “You can’t take it with you.” Money is easy. We made our wills long ago, realizing that drunk drivers...