I’ve had a checkered history with pets. As a child, I was into dogs. What child doesn’t beg for a puppy? I got a puppy. A shiny little cocker spaniel named Taffy. We were inseparable until I was in junior high. Into the woods, across the fields and creeks, through back yards and alleyways and clambering down into the newly dug holes for new houses – Taffy and I went everywhere together except when I climbed trees, and then she waited for me at the bottom. I still remember the day my dad told me that Taffy had gone “to live on a farm.” By that time, I was more into boys than Taffy. Read more about Pets'n'Me: A Short History

I have little to say about the Orlando massacre aside from the horror and grief that we all feel at such a useless (and is there ever a useful?) loss of life. Aside from a couple of gay friends, one now living far away and the other long dead of AIDS, and some lesbian neighbors of mine, I do not have much interaction with that community in particular. As a matter of fact, I’m on record as having been a little miffed off when the issue of gay marriage popped up on Ohio’s state ballot the year that I hoped we could rout George W. Read more about Gay Inspiration

“I didn’t think life was about learning to cook,” says one of my characters in a recent novel.

“That’s exactly what life is about,” retorts another character. Read more about Learning to Cook

I found out within the last hour that Sara, a dear friend of mine, is terminally ill and hospice has been called to her home. Her daughter and her husband will be her caretakers, along with the hospice workers.

This came as a shock to me, but when I called a mutual friend, who is also close to her, he told me that he, too, hadn’t been in touch recently. She had been ill, and did not want company, even when I suggested stopping by. I just assumed that when she felt up to it, I would hear from her and in the meantime, my life went on. Read more about Spring Comes On Forever

Well, it’s been a week. I went to the grocery store on Monday and detected a flubby sound on the way. In the parking lot, I discovered a tire as flat as a snail’s foot. Snailed it a block over to Discount Tire with a sack full of groceries (might as well go ahead and shop), only to be told that if they pumped it up in that condition it could explode. So I waited until a mechanic was free to change it. Sudoku on my phone. Read more about Waiting Games

I think I was about 13 when I read my mother’s copy of . Not counting Rhett Butler, I fell in love with two concepts: red hair and green eyes, and Mammy.

This confession of Mammy-love came up recently when someone online referenced another favorite character loved for her supportive role, which reminded me of Mammy, and referencing her, I felt obliged to explain how it seemed as if I had, at one time, wanted my very own slave. Read more about Mammy

Presentmas is my daughter’s favorite term for Christmas, because at our house it’s always been all about the presents. I’ve trotted out my thoughts on the season on at least a couple of occasions, one addressing the issue of greetings and another addressing the presents/indulgence issue. I hold firmly to those positions. Read more about Presentmas

I was driving to Costco to pick up a new pair of glasses early yesterday afternoon when I heard the first reports of the latest terrorist attacks in Paris. The kind man who retrieved my glasses for me was born in Germany near the French border. He asked me if I had heard anything further than what he had picked up at work. I told him what I knew, and we talked for a little while about why such things happen. About disaffected youth and discrimination and joblessness and the desperate search for some kind of meaning in lives that can find little else than whatever jihad has come to mean. Read more about Nothing

Remember George Carlin’s classic bit on Stuff?

My generation loved it. We thought it was deep. Maybe it’s my dotage showing, but lately I’ve come to think it’s not deep at all. It’s just a cranky guy riffing on a word.

Stuff. It’s a great word that covers a multitude of blessings.
Know your stuff
Do a lot of stuff;
Your morals, your values, that type of stuff.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on… Read more about Stuff

There are a couple of definite changes that have come over me in the last few years, not counting menopause. For one thing, I no longer keep a careful eye out for vampires. For another thing, I don’t freak out when I walk into a spider’s web. Read more about Spider Time