The Things We Remember

[Student prison, no longer in service, U of Heidelberg] At the 30th high school reunion, I told S that I remembered that in elementary schoo...

Facebook/Who we were

In junior high, we were S and S and S (same names, two different spellings) and L, and sometimes the other L, who wasn't Jewish. S and L...

Familiar/de-familiarization

The things we know. The things we think we know. The things we feel we know. We were talking about Germany tonight. T's next book is abo...

Bay Area

I read from my book last night to a group at the Women's Cancer Resource Center in Oakland. It's independent, and sponsors many gro...

Self/Hood

I have been in therapy, off and on (mostly on), probably longer than many of you have been alive. The short version is, to quote myself on J...

More progress

I picked L up from the hospital this morning. He was standing outside Fancy Hospital, not in a wheelchair. He is doing fine but has restrict...

L's progress

L is out of the recovery room and is talking baseball (he went to last night's Cubs/Cardinals game) and is as well as could be expected ...

The shoe is on the other foot.

Defibrillator on left; pacemaker on right Or I'm wearing a different hat. Or, less metaphorically, L is wearing the pale green Fancy Hos...

Compare and contrast

Very quickly, now: In Sofia, the trash bins on the sidewalk are rusty metal. In Budapest they're nice plastic lined with plastic bags. I...

From high in the Buda hills...

Budapest is the new Prague, which was the new Paris, which was just plain Paris, and forever Paris because that's what Paris is. And Pra...