https://youtu.be/dgxI3PT9IN8 Neil Young famously wrote that it’s hard to make arrangements with yourself. I‘ve always found this to be true. Of all the things I loved about being in a long term committed relationship, the dialectic was maybe my favorite. You are always bouncing things off one-another, and even when you don’t do so overtly, …
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(Un)happy Anniversaries
When Nina and I were married (which, I guess in some metaphysical sense we still are? But death legally terminates marriage, so I feel like I ought to use the past tense? Widowhood is weird?), I used to like to buy her anniversary gifts based on the "traditional" list of materials that runs from Paper …
It’s the Narrative, Stupid (Cancer)
Participating in The Atlantic's People v. Cancer got me thinking about mortality and survival and the cancer narrative that includes them both.
The Hunt for Red Faced Self-Forgiveness
The other night the boys and I watched The Hunt for Red October. What could be better than movie night on a rainy November Friday? We took a circuitous approach to the boys’ introduction to the Jack Ryan saga. First, I fell asleep at about 6:40 pm. I ordered Chinese takeout, we ate, I cleaned …
Sunday Book Review: Anxiety the missing stage of grief, by Claire Bidwell-Smith
It's not the NYT, but it IS Sunday, and this IS a book review, so as Benny would say:"it's not false advertising if I think it's true, Freddy!"A few months ago Claire Bidwell Smith sent me a copy of her latest book -- Anxiety: the missing stage of grief. Full disclosure: I’ve never met Claire, but …
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Tae Kwon Do or Tae Kwon Don’t, either way you’ll regret it.
Last night the boys had Tae Kwon Do testing. They’re now the proud owners of a green belt with a blue stripe. Although their master during the belt ceremony reminded all the kids not to focus on the belt but on the discipline and hard work of learning their techniques, let’s be serious, the very …
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Perspective
Three dudes, three radically different perspectives on most things, let alone ultimate questions. In rereading my post from yesterday on recovering from surgery, I was struck by the fact that, even in taking myself down a peg for my approach to illness and recovery – imagining what Nina would have made of it all -- I …
Stool softeners, Zofran, and other remembrances of loves past
This week was weird, even for me. On Monday I had knee surgery. It is the kind of knee surgery that’s so routine that the surgeon feels pretty blasé about telling you he does 15-20 of them a day. But there is no routine surgery when you’re the patient, and in my case, there is …
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Crash Course in Knee Surgery
I am having surgery tomorrow. It's very minor surgery. I’ve had a balky right knee for ages and it finally just gave up during a jog a couple weeks ago. The surgery is just to repair a torn meniscus. It’s the kind of surgery that’s so minor the doctor told me I could opt to …
Afterword 