I just read an article titled “Canada has Death Panels—and That’s a Good Thing,” by Adam Goldenberg. My plan is to avoid expressing political opinions. It’s not hard, because politics has become astonishingly negative and destructive. This is truly a shame, and it’s shameful. There are lots of things I’d like to talk about. We…
Mom rewards my optimism
October 20, 2013
Mom has seen fit to reward my optimism. Yesterday I broke with the pessimists in my life, and by nightfall I was shown that I made the right decision. Those of you who think I’m insane for believing this can go right ahead. I respect your opinion, and I— No I don’t. Cram it. Shove…
Advice for survivors
October 20, 2013
I’ve heard it from other survivors of a death, and now I’ve discovered that it’s true: Your “friends” will dump you. There are lots of reasons. They don’t know what to say to you, the death reminds them of their own mortality, they’ve never even thought about death, they’re not used to feeling or expressing…
Orphans
October 18, 2013
Today it finally hit me that my brothers, my sister, and I are orphans. Eric still has his mother, but the rest of us are parentless. We’re all fifty or thereabouts, so it’s not like we’re now helpless and terrified. I find it incomprehensible more than anything else. Though Mom and Dad died for nine…
Why I don’t hate, Part Two
October 10, 2013
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…
Reclaiming my past
October 2, 2013
I just found a letter I’d forgotten I wrote. It’s dated September 26, 1996. I never sent it. Here’s part. * * * I’ve been dividing my time between writing, seeing a shrink (my head’s the size of a grapefruit now), and working on my great-aunt’s house next door. It’s a very Wictoresque venture so…
On corruption
September 26, 2013
Those of you who’ve read Ghosts and Ballyhoo know that my brother Paul and I narrowly avoided being killed by an Irish Republican Army nail bomb in Regent’s Park on July 20, 1982. As a result of that experience, I’ve read everything I can about terrorism. It turns out that the terrorists who attacked the…
Is it harder when there is no love?
September 24, 2013
In his piece “Saying Goodbye,” Walter Russel Mead describes the death of his beloved mother, who died September 16, 2013. He writes the following: My siblings and I are immigrants in a new and forbidding land. We have been swept from the balmy seas and friendly isles that nurtured us into a windswept, harder place….
Detox
September 22, 2013
I did it. Through sheer willpower, I’ve broken the last of my really bad habits. This was one of the most corrosive. It’s been several days now, and I’m still clean. The detox worked. After changing so much about myself that I didn’t like, I couldn’t stop going on a particular Website and fighting with…