Untethered Dog

Get calm. Whatever you need but the body must register your arrival. It is, therefore, a great conduit. Engage the concern. Aim for proactive, seek meaning, don’t grasp for answers.

But then you press your more weathered nose against another window and see your reflection. While you were not fooled before — while you are not, in fact, where you once were, you aren’t as formed as you thought when you felt so mighty as to smear at yourself.

It’s strange to have a song stuck in your head when you don’t know the last time you heard the song, you haven’t before especially liked the song, and, in a way, the song predates you. In fact, Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” was recorded the year I was born. The following year it […]

One thing I’m going to have to face is the fact that I’m going to come up short in this life. I am going to fail to create what I am capable of creating. Or — either that — I am not as capable as I think I am. I am not sure which it […]

I have over time discovered that there are three things I must do each morning in order to have any semblance of a chance to win the day: Write something that moves me. Move me (work out). Take care of my dog (walks, meals, meds, bath*). While the dog still gets his daily doses, I […]

“Character is destiny.” I had heard those words before. Last night I read that they were attributed to Heraclitus, a Presocratic philosopher who was said to practice social distancing several thousand years before it was cool. He was a hermit. There is a lot of wisdom in that view. Character is not a word you […]

Turns out, I was wearing it upside down. My mask. My N-95. My first one. As I stood in line to get into the grocery store, I snapped a selfie to send to my friend as I thanked him again for the gratis covering. He politely pointed out my error. I didn’t receive his gentle […]

I go along thinking shelter-in-place hasn’t affected me much. For every adverse effect, I can find a positive. For every downside, I can see an upside. As one who is neither sick nor unemployed, it is, frankly, hard to muster a complaint. With so many in true duress, I am, by comparison, fortunate. No doubt. […]

An hour after I drafted my previous post I had a dream during which I realized I had learned my own lesson about assessments all over again. It was like a paradox inside of a paradox. Like dreams often are, the moment didn’t make sense, not literally, not in waking life, and yet in dream […]

I’m not an expert on intermittent fasting (IF) but that won’t stop me from dishing out some opinions on this tasty topic. I have read a fair amount and watched several videos — a Japanese scientist, Yoshinori Ohsumi, won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the topic so if […]

I am not a good sick person. I don’t deal well with not feeling well. Simply put, I am bad at illness. This week I have tried a trick that people with health issues of a more acute or chronic nature no doubt figure out: don’t identify too closely with your health. Call it the […]

I am not a doctor and I don’t play one on the Internet. I do not know what works for anyone else but here are my keys to dealing with the icks: – Drink lots of water. Duh. You have to flush out the bad stuff. – Put a splash of apple cider vinegar (with […]

Turns out, my blahs had a physiological component. My body, it is now clear, is fighting something. It’s funny how you don’t notice the signs. I recall asking a friend on Saturday morning, “Is it colder in here today than usual?” I had on two layers. He looked at me like “what are you talking […]

Expression is one of my current core values. For reasons I won’t go into now, expression has not always come easily for me. Also for reasons I won’t go into now, writing about expression is not coming easily for me at present, either. That is why they invented bullet points — to create the illusion […]

I am tired of the sound of my own voice. I have listened to me all day (out loud and inside this melon on my shoulders) and, frankly, I have not had much interesting to say. By the end here, well, I slipped into a little something crabby. My apologies to the ether! And to […]

A characteristic of grief is that it can keep you from feeling things you want to or need to feel. Not just the so-called good feelings, either — happiness, joy, pleasure. Though, to be sure. Sometimes grief, which I imagine, if one wants to visualize it as an entity all its own, as a sort […]

They have to around here somewhere. I just had them! Where did you last see them? They were right … over … there! … right where I always leave them. You could retrace your steps. [Head scratch] Did I? No: I couldn’t have left them at the office. The gym. In the garage. I have […]

The heat hums. Then fades. It is early morning. Our breaths, yours and your little buddy’s, inhale, exhale. Air in, air out. You are in your morning spot. On days that you suspect might be bigger than other days the tendency is toward control. You tighten your grip on the smallest silver of this life […]

The word of the weekend is Gratitude. I realize Thanksgiving is not quite yet upon us. Call this a primer. Anyway, this is not about one day. It’s about 365. We all know that grateful people are happier people, don’t we? We have all experienced this for ourselves, too, seen what it does for us […]

Sometimes a week goes off the rails. I have not written much this week — a sign of stress and also an absence that exacerbates stress. I have lifted little weight this week, too. Same. I usually choose to stand much of the day at work. Yesterday, I sat more than usual. At one point, […]