My family was baptized into life in Houston on June 15, 1976—the only time in history that a game at the Astrodome was ever rained out. In the early afternoon, a storm dropped almost 13 inches of water on the city in about three hours. Flooding and traffic were so bad that the players couldn’t make it to the legendary domed stadium, much less the fans. We didn’t know that factoid until much later. The news the next day focused, of course, on the eight lives lost and on the damage to the Texas Medical Center and several of the city’s art museums.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. My story starts earlier in the day, on the last leg of a four-day trip from our previous home in the suburbs of Philadelphia. We’d spent a night each …more
I’ve signed up again for “50/50,” Max Regan’s 50-day online workshop. “Students will receive a writing exercise via e-mail each day and will write at least one page of text a day,” says Max’s introduction to the course. Fifty days, fifty pages—hence the title. For more information about the course, visit Max’s 50/50 blog.
The class provides no mechanism for feedback; its purpose is merely to inspire and stimulate participants to cultivate or expand their every-day writing habit. I’m planning to post my 50/50 output here again, however, so that friends and fellow writers who’ve expressed interest or curiosity about my writing can take a look and give me some comments. [View the archive of my 50/50 pieces from the spring 2008 course.]
If you’ve found your way here, either because I invited you or just by accident, I’d love to know what you think. Please post your feedback as a comment on the posting to which it applies, or if you’d prefer not to make them public, . (Or call me on the phone if your critique is likely to make me cry.)
Sheldon Avenue in Baltimore was where my maternal grandparents lived, the home where my mother grew up, the place my brother and sisters and I dreaded visiting. Or at least I dreaded visiting. It was an orderly street of row houses and sycamore trees, with long concrete staircases at the lower end, shorter staircases at the top end where the street intersected with Belair Road. Belair Road was the limit they’d placed on our wanderings; we were not to cross the six busy lanes of asphalt under any circumstances.
Their house was the fourth from the bottom of the row—fourth on the right as you climbed the street in the front, fourth from the left as you climbed …more
Before I’d even finished yesterday’s blog entry, I did some googling on “happiest man Buddhist monk.” I’ll admit it: I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going too far out on a limb. I wanted to temper my language in case it turned out that there was compelling scientific evidence that scientists had identified the most joyful person alive. In other words, I wanted to cover my skeptical ass.
I wasn’t surprised to find out that the idea of “the happiest man in the world” hadn’t originated with Patty Gras. As near as I’ve been able to determine so far, that phrase originated in an article by Anthony Barnes in the January 21, 2007, issue of The Independent. The article talks about Matthieu Ricard, a French academic who left his job …more
I received an e-mail today from Patty Gras at KUHT (Houston PBS). She’s a producer and the host of a “health and lifestyle” show called Living Smart. The show features topics related to health, alternative medicine, diet, self-improvement, and so forth. Here’s what she has to say about an upcoming show:
“Did you know the happiest man on the planet is a Buddhist monk? Scientists checked his brain waves and found him to be the most joyful person on earth, so we decided to talk to another monk, Master Jian Xiao Shih, so he could share some of the secrets to happiness!
“Master Shih of the Chung Tai Zen center of Houston will share the art …more
I embarked on a new initiative today. Inspired by what I’ve accomplished in the Boot Camp, I’ve set an ambitious new goal: to write 3,000 words of first-draft text every day. It’s my hope that with this commitment, I’ll push my daily writing routine to a new level and generate some material I can get published.
Today’s 3,000+ words took the form of several fragments—the very raw beginnings of a few stories and essays mixed together with assorted rants and ramblings. I’m going to select a chunk of 1,000 of those words to send to Max as today’s submission for the Boot Camp class, but I’m not ready to post anything (else) new to the blog today.
I love to-do lists. It’s great to gather the details of your life into concise bullet points, to organize the universe of tasks by priority or category or color-coding. It’s great to check things off a list.
I have a lot of problems with to-do lists.
I don’t like being told what to do—even by me. I never know how to deal with recurring tasks. Do I really need to remind myself to make my bed? Once upon a time, I did. If I take it off the list, will a day come when I forget to do it? On the other hand, it’s an easy job to check off early in the day to get …more
I found this nugget of wisdom on an unassuming, hand-lettered wooden plaque in the restroom at Antidote Coffee (729 Studewood St, Houston). It’s a refreshing change from the standard-issue health department signs that you see all over the place. I like the reasonable tone, the gentle admonishment that could be spoken by your grandmother, or maybe a patient nursery-school teacher.
“We want you to wash your hands because we care about you,” it seems to say. “Oh, and if you work in the kitchen, we really must insist. Thanks for being so understanding. Have a great day!”
Upon further consideration, I’ve decided to reveal the secret identity of “Rotten Mary,” the pseudonym I assigned to the previous owner of my P.O. box in one of yesterday’s postings. The actually name of the business in question is Evil Bettie Motor Wear. I made the decision to out Evil Bettie when I realized that her web site still lists MY post office box number as her mailing address!
I would like to make it perfectly clear that I am NOT Evil Bettie.
Although God had clearly outlined His plans to kill 500,000 people in southwestern California yesterday, He must have changed His mind at the last minute.
I hope the FBI is keeping an eye on the fellow who writes the web site to which I’ve linked above, because he makes the Unabomber sound quite sensible. I also hope the FBI is keeping an eye on God, just in case the other guy is right about all the terrorist threats in the Bible.
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