Ars Moriendi, Part One: The Conversation*
Sean MurphyWriting in the New York Times on October 7, Bill Keller's touching essay "How To Die" confirms a regrettably consistent reality regarding end-of-life care (the before, during and after of…
Adaptation*
Remembering. Everything changes after a baby is born. This is what everyone told her. Her mother had told her everything, but—she would come to understand—there is nothing that can be…
End of Summer (Camp) with a Bat, a Cat and a Clown (Revisited)
It is an inexorable, if lamentable rite of passage to revisit cultural mementos from one's childhood and discover that, to an adult's eyes, they are lacking. But then, "putting away…
Encomium
August 30, 2002 I said: Everything that is good about me is because of my mother. I was in a church for the first time in forever. The church where…
*Pig Parts Sold Separately.
I don't know about you, but after a tough day at the office, few things unwind me faster than busting out my broadsword and going to work on some animal…
Sanctuary*
I visited my mother’s grave the first several years for the same reason I used to attend church: it was expected, it was meant to make me feel better, it…
Reversal*
You become a parent, in reverse. The idea is that, in theory, as your parents age you assume some degree of responsibility for them and, to some degree, you take…
Every Time I Scribble A Thought With Artistic Intent*
I’m fortunate, in a sense, to be the type of person that gets more sentimental about the times I read a certain book or heard a particular album than I…
Art and Life
(2003) Every so often I can’t help hoping that there will be a knock on my door and when I open it, who is there but my sexy soul mate,…
The End*
I didn’t need a doctor to tell me that it was over. On the way to no longer being, a person suffering from a terminal disease, like cancer, ceases to…