This is Where I’ve Been

  Week Two: Oh My God Oh my God, you take the biscuit Treating me this way Expecting me to treat you well No matter what you say… Take the space between us And fill it up some way —The Police, Oh My God , from Synchronicity During a recent conversation with our next-door neighbors in the space after dinner and before filling our time playing a board game, I revealed my dislike for the inescapable, seemingly international, cultural trend that all but requires everyone to inquire regarding my well being. I’m serious. It is conspicuous how often people ask me how I am doing.  It’s not my imagination (although I am hypersensitive to it) that throughout every day, many, many people ask me how I am. Over time I have come to realize that the vast majority of these inquiries are not sincere. Pretty much no one really wants to know how I am; they are just doing what almost everyone else does—they start every exchange with a pleasantry; a starter of sorts; a courteous show of concern. The proble

Week One: My Father’s Shoes  And now I think of my daddy, he wore these kinds of shoes. And after all this time I think I know him. I’d like to say I love him, but the time has passed away. What are the words I can say? --Leon Russell, My Father’s Shoes , from Will ‘o the Wisp A few years ago, after we returned from living in Europe for ten months, I was determined to lose weight. Being a fat guy has its perks, but mostly it comes with being out of breath and unable to do many simple tasks easily. So I walked. And rode my bike. And listened to Internet radio. As well as it worked, the fat guy survived, and he didn’t much like what was going on, for sure. One thing that was going on was a renewed sense of clarity, and believe it or not, it was helped along by Internet radio. Every day I heard a song and a lyric that I knew and loved. And so it was on one of those walks that I decided to dust off my blog. Walking seems like a mindless endeavor. It’s not. Walking actually allows the mind