Today is Valentine’s Day, again. My friends who work in the restaurant industry are working longer hours today – special dishes and menus, overbooked reservations, and covering shifts for people who want to celebrate. Yesterday, as I walked to the grocery store to get a bottle of wine to go with my solo dinner, I…
Category: Life
Friends of Varying Degrees
Yesterday, the group chat was abuzz about the passing of a friend. I knew this person the way we seem to know most people these days – we were friends on Facebook. Aside from the annual birthday wishes, we hadn’t talked or interacted in over a decade. He went to high school with my ex-wife…
It’s a Man’s World: Brain Rot in the Manosphere
For one reason or another, people like to debate with me at bars. Ok – maybe “like” is a strong word, and maybe I start my share of the debates. Quite often, the conversation begins innocently enough. They’ll ask what I do for a living. I’ll tell them nonprofit work – hunger, housing, poverty. They’ll…
Super Bowl Week
It’s Super bowl week here in the Bay Area. The game will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara (about 45 miles outside of San Francisco), but the lion’s share of events are taking place in the city. Venues in/near my neighborhood are hosting several concerts (Sting, Post Malone, the Killers) along with an…
I Hear the Ax Swinging
By mid-morning I was feeling lost. I wanted something different, but didn’t know how to get from here to there or there to somewhere else. It was sunny and temperate and I could feel that if I wasn’t careful, I just might lose the day. A sense of trepidation was setting in – about what,…
“Free America” Walkout – 1/20/26
Overcast with no breeze, the four o’clock weather is cool. The temperatures are in the mid-fifties. Near where I stand leaning against one of the barren and trimmed trees that line Civic Center Plaza, the click-pound hammer of staple guns echo above the chants of the protesters. We gather for yet another march against the…
College Football: It Ain’t What It Used to Be
My uncle’s email titled YOUR PSU SCORECARD, listed which Penn State football players were staying, which ones were leaving, and which ones were transferring in from other schools. The transfer portal, in which kids can now switch schools every year without penalty (you used to have to sit out a year if you changed schools)…
Rain Rain Go Away
Monday morning Slanting rain streaks the windows. The magnolia tree shakes and waves in quick bursts of wind. A firetruck blares in the distance and then fades. Tuesday… Yesterday, we were in the middle of, or maybe at the end of, a weather event. It had been raining for the past three or four days…
Ending with a Whimper
Because the New Year arrives this week (which makes it sound more like a package from Amazon than the resetting of time and habits), I’ve been in “get my life together” and “get a jump on things” mode. I’m not usually one for resolutions. I believe change is a slow practice and can start on…
Walking Around Philly
The streets are narrow and crowded with parked cars. The skies are grey. A light mist falls. It’s cool but not cold. The color seems to have drained from the city as if everything has been coated in a thin film of charcoal. Philly has often been described a gritty city – both in terms…
Travel Anxiety?
Tonight I’ll take the red-eye to Philadelphia where I’ll see family over the holidays. Generally speaking, I don’t think of myself an an anxious person, but my morning – which has been one long and scattered wander around my apartment fidgeting with things and jumping from task to task – would suggest otherwise. Nervous energy….
Jumble of a Morning, Jumble of a Day
This morning, I woke from a dream in which a woman I was seeing said she was going to have lunch with friends in Philly. They changed plans and moved lunch to Sausalito and were then going to see a band I like who was playing a small outside venue there. It was late day…