May has been difficult. I had food poisoning on my birthday. The 13th was my parents’ anniversary. The 22nd was my father’s birthday. And Memorial Day weekend will forever be conjoined with the Indy 500 and my dad’s love for the race he grew up watching. More than once, as a kid, I was put […]

Like many, I can’t stop thinking about the destruction left by Hurricane Katrina these past several days, and in particular, that to my beloved New Orleans. I know it could have been worse — the deaths and wreckage in Mississippi are proof — but the Crescent City holds a special place in my heart for […]

It’s been a strange several days of sleeplessness, stress, and finally, stasis. Sunday, I finally phoned and confronted my mom about her health problems. She downplayed the severity of the transient ischemic attack (TIA) my brother told me had occured about two weeks ago, but described a loss of vision in her right eye for […]

Our first vacation in a year started out pleasantly enough: easy flight to M’waukee; smooth drive to Indiana, with barely any slowdown around Chicago; and a surprisingly good dinner in Valparaiso. (After little food all day, I was hungry for something fast and cheap and bad for me, but D. wanted to try a locally […]

Been hard to focus today as I think about the bombings in London, how horrible it must have been to be trapped underground in the Tube with the chaos and smoke and general hysteria and confusion. There’s a hard knot of pain in my stomach that has nothing to do with the wonton soup I […]