We are emotionally available, we have words to express our feelings. We rally for our friend in need. We are men. I can’t trust her. You shouldn’t trust her. She’s admitted to everything I’ve found out but nothing more. You’ve got her cornered. She’s on the defensive. She won’t even talk to me. Let’s have a beer. I’m a mess right now. I’m in a bad space and it feels like it will never end. We can...
The New York Post is not one of my go-to information sources, but you never know what will show up in your feed, and I clicked on an article about something called the Gen Z gaze. The first line in the article: “If you’ve ever walked up to a cashier or front desk and been met with a silent stare, you’ve been a victim of the ‘Gen Z gaze’.” Maybe you know the stare. You’re next in line and when...
I annually repost this column from an earlier date of ten dad lessons I’ve learned in honor of all fathers on this Father’s Day. With every passing year, these lessons feel more relevant and continue to guide my evolving role as a father as my kids become independent adults. They’re all based on my experience. 1. Show Up Regardless of whether you live with them or not, a father’s job...
While Trump presided over a noxious display of military might at his Soviet-style parade in Washington yesterday, we participated in the No Kings protest against dictatorship and for democracy. Thousands of people in Albany came out to peacefully protest the accumulation of unconstitutional power by the current administration, to denounce its cruelty, to speak out against its policies that favor...
Since the day I was old enough to stray from my mother’s watchful eye and wander off from our blanket spread on the sandy, modest public beach at Thunder Bay on the shore of Lake Erie in Canada, I would take beach walks along the curve of the bay. Walk east, and you come across Root Beer Creek, so named by us for its water color. Walk west, and you come across a flat rock area abutting the shore...
One of my favorite punctuation marks—the em dash—(see what I did there?) is under siege. I’ve made liberal use of the em dash in all five of my novels, deploying it early and often in my writing style: STASH (page 1): “But she reminded herself that Nora was only seven, a loving, intelligent girl, tall and strong and for the most part capable, yet fearful of small things going wrong—such as...
Our hiking season begins on a perfectly pleasant day on the shoulder between Spring and Summer. Mild temps, verdant landscape, stream crossings, muddy spots, flitting bugs. Jimmy and I wanted to ease our way in, so we picked a hike of about six miles that would get us to the top of two of the highest Catskill peaks—Blackhead and Black Dome. Color of the day: green. But memory can lead us astray...
I saw you standing at the cornerLast night at First and ParkI lagged behind so we wouldn’t meetUntil you vanished in the dark Then you spot me all aloneAt the bar of our favorite jointYou walk out before I turn aroundbecause really what’s the point We never claimed we’d meet once more, by design or circumstanceWho can guess the future, who wants a second chance. We wrote a story the end was sadWe...
It’s a diploma, I know that much. And although my Latin is mighty rusty, in fact nonexistent, my best translation is this: You’ve done one hell of a job and on behalf of this university, your professors, mentors, family, and friends, we congratulate you, we honor you, we admire your keen intelligence, dedication, creativity, and hard work, and please know that trees everywhere are bowing their...
I know first-hand about “use it or lose it” syndrome. After I stopped doing pull-ups due to a shoulder injury, when I was finally ready to try again, I could barely get myself above the bar. I used to be able to make myself understood speaking French, but having left Switzerland decades ago I’m now reduced to little more than “Bonjour” and “Au revoir.” We all experience “use it or lose it.” The...
Today I honor the two most influential mothers in my life: my mother, Irene Klein, and my life partner and mother to Julia and Owen, Harriet Jaffe. Irene It’s been more than forty years since I’ve had a mother. I have only the same few memories of my mother; many are foggy. I can form no new ones. And many memories are long forgotten. But I know this: I loved my mom deeply. I felt a strong...
In the 2025 World Happiness Report, the United States dropped to its lowest ranking since that survey began. The U.S. ranked 24th out of 147 countries, a decline from its 15th-place ranking in 2023 and its highest ranking of 11th place in 2012. The low score can be attributed by the unhappiness of people under the age of 30. While the U.S. was 24th overall, for people aged 20-30, we were...
It gives me a boost to know that across the country people were engaged in mass protests today against the Trump authoritarian regime. May 1—known as May Day—is the perfect opportunity to take to the streets. May Day has a long association with pagan and spring festivals in Europe dating back to the Roman Empire, and has become synonymous with the labor movement in the last 150 years. In 1889 an...
I’m rethinking an adage I’ve often believed in: you are what you do. The novelist Annie Dillard best encapsulated this concept when she wrote: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.” Dillard reinforces the concept that our lives consist of what we do with our time. The word “do” places the spotlight on...
Winter felt long and imagine my pleasure seeing the first brave flowers of spring, these snowdrops stretching and opening between a crack in the rocks. I was so excited I wrote about it. And then visited another harbinger of spring: rabbits. Those darn bunny rabbits ate my pretty flowers down to the bone. “Curse you, dastardly rabbits!” In an earlier era, we didn’t have a rabbit problem. We had...
