Thomas Wictor

Author Archive

Mom’s favorite song

Mom was a music prodigy. She gave her first public piano recital at the age of four. She quit playing when she was sent to boarding school at five due to family problems. Someday I’ll write about that. Mom’s time in the boarding school led directly to her death eighty years later. Since there was…

 

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Mom has died.

She died at 12:00 p.m., October 13, 2013, at the age of eighty-five. Dr. Leberthon kept his word and saved her from pneumonia. She died of cardiac arrest, which occurred after she went into a coma. Her death was very peaceful. She simply stopped. Thank you, Dr. Leberthon. Another miracle. You saved Mom from suffocating….

 

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Dead in the water

Everything I’ve read about WordPress says it’s wonderful for search engines. Techies are ecstatic. Right out of the box, WordPress is perfect. But in this avalanche of accolades, I run across little “buts.” For example, WordPress doesn’t need no stinkin’ tags. Those are from the Stone Age. So, when I found out a few days…

 

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One of these dreams again

I had these dreams almost every night for years. This one’s different in terms of the emotional ambiance. Back in San Francisco, I went to Lola’s row house to spend the night. She wasn’t home, but I let myself in and stretched out on the sofa where I slept when I visited her. Dark outside,…

 

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Why I don’t hate, Part Two

I’ve just discovered that my Extravagumbo Website is worthless, and I can’t get a response from the people who made it. I’ve spent all day trying to figure out how to write a description for my Website that will show up on search engines, but nobody can or will help me. Nobody cares. People to…

 

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It grew back

Two years before he died, Dad was told that he had a mass in his abdomen that needed to be checked. We didn’t know this until after he’d died and we saw his medical records. Instead of having his mass checked, Dad went on a plant-slaughtering spree in his yard, chopping absolutely everything back to…

 

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Dying isn’t catching

It appears that Mom is very near the end. One thing I’d like to say is that our culture has forgotten how to die. People—even health-care workers—act very abnormally around dying people. Just stop it. Mom was still Mom. She hadn’t changed. Why would I act differently around her? Last night she told me to…

 

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Whisperings

There came whisperings in the winds: “Good-bye! good-bye!” Little voices called in the darkness: “Good-bye! good-bye!” Then I stretched forth my arms. “No—No—” There came whisperings in the wind: “Good-bye! good-bye!” Little voices called in the darkness: “Good-bye! good-bye!”                                                       —Stephen Crane  

 

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Just did a radio interview

Five minutes ago, I concluded my second radio interview. With Tron Simpson, “Tron in the Morning,” KCBR-AM 1040, Colorado Springs. “In the morning” was right. Six in the morning for me. That’s okay. I wasn’t able to sleep anyway. Very nice interviewer, perfectly understood the intent of the book, and wished me well. I wish…

 

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Not a chance

I got a message. You’re too young to write your memoirs. Feels like a suicide note saying, “Thank you world and fuck you.” Well, I wrote the memoir because readers forced me to. No, that’s only partially true. Readers of Talkbass.com did demand that I write a book, but the truth is that I wanted…

 

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