Beautiful summer twilights depress the hell out of me. The same holds true about beautiful music by Bach, Hayden, Mozart and other great composers. I think it is the fact that these things are so beautiful is depressing me. The summer day at about 4:30 to 6:00 to me, represents death. I guess to the […]
Family pictures from one’s own childhood are tricky. The pictures of ourselves before we had the ability to form memories are useful only to the extent that we can say, “I have my father’s eyes,” or “I look just like my mother.” But in general, this is for others to say. What about family snapshots […]
Attention There are many factors that figure into the calculation of attention in a family. All other things being equal (which is probably a rare occasion), in families with more than one child, birth order plays a big role. When children are not separated by many years, sibling rivalry sets up a dynamic among the […]
Part of my inspiration for posting this today is the blog post from Osiris Ramos (http://osirisramos.wordpress.com/): I Would Like to be Old (posted 8-23-12). A chat with Mom I started writing this post a few days ago after speaking with Mom. In fact the title of this post is a direct quote from her. Defeat […]
I’m not very big on looking for signs to guide me, being an existentialist. However, I do stop at stop signs and stop lights when I’m driving; when it’s cloudy, I say, “Looks like rain,” just like everyone else; I don’t touch the stove if the red light indicates that the element is still hot. […]
In looking to improve my writing skills I am thumbing through some of my books about writing. Chapter I of Brenda Ueland’s ’If You Want to Write’ [1] is entitled: ‘Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.’ It struck me that this is equivalent to the statement in the Declaration of Independence, […]
The art of waiting As I said the other day, waiting is an art form at which I excel. In fact, I was thinking of publishing a book of the drawings I did while waiting for my wife. I’ve gotten pretty good at drawing scenes through the windshield of the car. The dashboard and sun […]
Importance of importance Early in my career, I was in charge of a nascent computer department at a city medical center. Paper records ruled at that time and there was a natural reluctance among the older established docs, to implement computerization of their operations. There happened to be enough work in laying the groundwork of […]
Left and right halves of faces seem pretty much the same. I took portraits of my family in preparation for a little experiment. (My little brother does not appear here.) Experiment I reversed each portrait, cut the faces in half, and made portraits of left halves and right halves. The resulting faces are very strange […]
There are other people from my brother Mike‘s group home that go to his day program. Mike is one of the lowest functioning individuals there. There are others like him that do not speak, but the staff is very good with them. I visited him there many times. He loved his slinky when he went […]
