It was almost exactly five years ago when our veterinarian gave us a distressing verdict on our beloved cat, Pumpkin. He had mouth cancer, and probably only had a few months left. Those few months passed, and Pumpkin was still with us, but winter was coming, and so I went out back and dug a grave for him knowing the time was near and the ground about to freeze. Pumpkin was outside on the patio at...
I guess I chose to live in the suburbs. Today is the 30th anniversary of moving into our house. At the time we purchased the house, we didn’t consider how long we might live here. We’d been married two years, had no kids, and generally believed this was our first, or starter, house. It’s a simple structure, Cape Cod style, on the smaller side, with a two-sided fireplace, a lot of roof, and...
Deep in the Catskills, the trail to the summit of Wittenberg Mountain begins in a campground not far from Phoenicia. The trail starts steep, then continues steeply, then rises more steeply until the top, 3.7 miles one-way. I’ve hiked Wittenberg before, maybe six or seven years ago. And yet, I chose to hike it again because of the incredible view from the top and my ability to forget pain. This...
Band of Brothers, one of the most acclaimed series ever filmed about World War II, Part 3: Carentan. Private Albert Blithe, suffering from the terror of combat, admits to Captain Ronald Speirs that he hid rather than fought. Speirs says to him: “The only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll be able to...
I’ve become enamored recently of reading the novella. A novella is the short story’s big brother and the novel’s little sister. There are no exact definitions of a novella, but the ones I’ve been reading are usually between 75-125 pages, in the range of 30,000 words. You can read them in one or two sittings. Classic examples are The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, which details the...
I haven’t paid attention to hockey in a long time, but this year, after a league-record 15-season playoff drought, the National Hockey League team I root for, my hometown Buffalo Sabres, won their division and made the playoffs. So I’ve been watching some of the games. Last week, in the first round of the playoffs, the Sabres were up three games to one against the Boston Bruins, playing at home...
Each year on 4/20, I give thanks to 420 Magazine for its generous review of my debut novel, Stash, which opens with a scene about a respected stay-at-home mom getting arrested for weed possession following a car accident. April 20 is weed day. Legend has it that the day got its name in the 1970s in California when a group of high school students met after school around 4:20 to get high and 4/20...
I recently wrote about the “perfect sentence” after a reader of my novel Still Life told me this sentence struck him as the perfect sentence: “I imagine the lake, too, through the leafless gap in the trees that winter opened like a cathedral door.” I analyzed the syntax and imagery of the sentence above, and waxed poetic or plainly about what entails a perfect sentence, never fully sure what I...
Not long before my future son-in-law proposed to my daughter, he asked me what’s the secret to a long and successful marriage. I responded quickly, without much thought: “Marry the right person.” My answer sounded facile, on the cheeky side. Sure, marry the right person, that’s the obvious secret—but how can you be sure you’re doing that? I believe the foundation, what you must have, is...
I’ve been trying to up my reading game, and recently finished reading my eighth and ninth novels of the year, which averages out to one novel every ten days. Not that anyone is counting. This reading pace feels right to me, neither rushed nor leisurely, but instead allowing me to engage in careful, focused reading every day. Blue Ruin, by Hari Kunzru, was recommended by a friend. It begins in the...
I was recently invited to a celebratory event where I knew hardly anyone, other than Harriet and Owen who attended with me. (Julia was invited but couldn’t make it.) I was assigned to a table and sat next to a guy I’d never met. By nature, I am admittedly on the self-absorbed, distracted side, and not inherently a great listener. I’m not an effusive, chatty type. I’m not extroverted in any way...
I attended my third No Kings protest yesterday on a cold and windy day. For me, it was the best one yet. Not because I believe the fascist administration will in any way change their behaviors—they won’t suddenly start policing their own corruption; they won’t stop shooting U.S. citizens or throwing immigrants in camps without due process; they won’t stop protecting pedophiles; they won’t...
A few years ago, I tapped two maple trees on my property, collected sap, and boiled it outside on a single-burner hotplate to make syrup. With a ratio of 40 gallons of sap needed to create one gallon of syrup, I ended up with about eight ounces of maple syrup—enough for a couple of pancake breakfasts. It was a classic situation of the effort not equaling the reward. But over this past weekend I...
On my own for a couple of weeks, I’ve been finding things to do beyond my usual routines. Last night I went to watch the girls varsity basketball team from our local high school—Bethlehem Central—take on Troy in a playoff championship game. I knew nothing about the team. I hadn’t followed them. Only through a quick pre-game search did I discover the Eagles had finished a weak regular season with...
There comes a time in life when a person acquires a pill case. That time has come for me. I used to think pill cases were only for old people or the very ill who took lots of meds daily or for those who are supplement-crazed. It’s true I’m trending older, but I take only one prescription medication, and just three times a week. I pop a daily low-dose aspirin, and not having seen much sun this...
