On Writing and Storytelling, or: How I Spent My Friday Afternoon – Revising, Rewriting, and Re-Publishing ‘Reunion’


“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.” ― Louis L’Amour Today I spent several hours revising – first on Word, then on Kindle Create – my short story Reunion, which I originally wrote in 1998 but waited 20 years till I could self-publish through Amazon’s CreateSpaceContinue reading “On Writing and Storytelling, or: How I Spent My Friday Afternoon – Revising, Rewriting, and Re-Publishing ‘Reunion’”

Tempus Fugit: Thinking About the Tyranny of Forced ‘Joint’ Birthday ‘Celebrations’


Hi, there, Dear Reader. It’s Tuesday, March 7, 2023 – two days after my 60th birthday and three days before my older half-sister Vicky’s 73rd. In the last decade of my mother’s life (2005-2015), this would have been the “compromise” date on which we’d celebrate both occasions. I say “compromise” because Vicky, for reasons thatContinue reading “Tempus Fugit: Thinking About the Tyranny of Forced ‘Joint’ Birthday ‘Celebrations’”

Tempus Fugit (Countdown to the Big Six-Oh Edition): Songs, Schedules, & Off-Campus Lunches…My High School Experience in February 1983


“I blinked my eyes and in an instant, decades had passed.” ― John Mark Green, Taste the Wild Wonder: Poems With less than 18 days before my 60th birthday – the first such recurrence of a “landmark” birthday since my mother’s death nearly eight years ago (and the ensuing physical as well as the emotionalContinue reading “Tempus Fugit (Countdown to the Big Six-Oh Edition): Songs, Schedules, & Off-Campus Lunches…My High School Experience in February 1983”

Tempus Fugit: Where Were You in October of ’72?


Where I Was in  October of ’72…. (A Tempus Fugit Gig) “Seasons change, people grow together and apart, life moves on. You will be OK, embrace it.” ― Alexandra Elle, Words from a Wanderer Author’s Note: In less than three days (as I write this, at any rate) it will be my late mother’s 94thContinue reading “Tempus Fugit: Where Were You in October of ’72?”

Tempus Fugit – Hurricane Andrew + 30 Edition, or: Remembering the Day After Landfall, August 25, 2022


Andrew Plus 30 As I sit here in my dimly lit bedroom/writer’s room/mancave in Lithia, Florida, it is another stifling hot late August morning where the heat seeps through the walls and warms my stocking feet underneath my desk. And even though the temperature outside is “only” 85°F/30°C, the bright subtropical sun and the highContinue reading “Tempus Fugit – Hurricane Andrew + 30 Edition, or: Remembering the Day After Landfall, August 25, 2022”

Musings & Thoughts for Monday, August 22,2022, or: Sibling Rivalry Stings, Even in Dreams


“People think dreams aren’t real just because they aren’t made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.” ― Neil Gaiman Last night, or early this morning, I dreamed about my half-sister Vicky. It wasn’t one of those rare dreams in whichContinue reading “Musings & Thoughts for Monday, August 22,2022, or: Sibling Rivalry Stings, Even in Dreams”

Tempus Fugit – August of 1972 Edition: The End of Summer Vacation is Nigh & Back-to-School Angst


Tempus Fugit “I blinked my eyes and in an instant, decades had passed.” ― John Mark Green, Taste the Wild Wonder: Poems Fifty years ago this month, my mom, my older half-sister Vicky (who had recently rejoined us after a brief but disastrous attempt to live with our maternal grandaunt Gabriela and stay in Bogota),Continue reading “Tempus Fugit – August of 1972 Edition: The End of Summer Vacation is Nigh & Back-to-School Angst”

Tempus Fugit – 1972 Edition, or: Musings on the Ephemeral, Imperfect, and Malleable Nature of Memory


“Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist.” ― Guy de Maupassant As the Dog Days of Summer 2022 near their finale – they began on Sunday, July 3, and will end on Thursday – I am struck by the concepts of memory, howContinue reading “Tempus Fugit – 1972 Edition, or: Musings on the Ephemeral, Imperfect, and Malleable Nature of Memory”

Tempus Fugit, Summer of 1972 Edition: Living in the ‘Here and Now’ in Sunny, Humid South Florida


“Time doesn’t really ‘march on’. It tends to tip-toe. There’s no parade. No stomping of boots to alert you to its passing. One day, you turn around and it is gone.” ― Heather Babcock This summer – this stiflingly hot, oft sad and depressing, and quite insane Summer of ’22 – is both my 59thContinue reading “Tempus Fugit, Summer of 1972 Edition: Living in the ‘Here and Now’ in Sunny, Humid South Florida”

Tempus Fugit: Remembering the House at 1001 in Coral Estates Park


Half a century ago this week, in the Miami suburb of Westchester, my mother and I moved into the house we would call “home” for the next five years – a one-story, 1505 square foot, single-family house that sat on a 7,777 square foot lot: 1001 SW 102nd Avenue. Built in 1963, the house wasContinue reading “Tempus Fugit: Remembering the House at 1001 in Coral Estates Park”