In some dreams, I’m on my porch not seeing anyone or hearing anything as if I’m the only one left. In others, I’m in an eight-story building searching for my coat. My searching leads me further from where I started—parking garage, outside the building, then on a mountainside without my jacket, when I wake up.… Read more: HERE

A few days ago, I posted an essay about painting wooden frogs for my neighbors—Guiro frogs that croak loudly when you scrape them with a stick. The essay was about choosing presence over paralysis, making noise together instead of doomscrolling alone while the world burns. I wrote about how “knowing paralyzes” and how I’d rather… Read more: BEFORE WE CROAK

“Starlight fell through black branches like ice through water—cold, deliberate and indifferent.” “Good. That was good,” Wolfgang said, pasting the harvested words into his document. Through their Bluetooth connection, Wolfgang could see what the Artificial Person he’d named “Jack,” saw for forty dollars per month; the fire, the blood red cherry logs catching—and the surrounding… Read more: FIRE AT BEAR MOUNTAIN

Jim Brewer, the headmaster of Barlow, was an imposing figure despite his disability. Standing six-foot-five, he navigated the campus on crutches with a remarkable speed and agility that belied his condition, moving with a determined strength that reminded me of a sea lion. He could navigate the entire campus nearly silently except for the telltale… Read more: TITLE

In the summer of 1985, I was hired as a laborer to help build a church in Burlington, Vermont. I knew nothing about commercial construction and was struggling with my sexuality, but my father was an architect and the proposed house of God’s hexagonal design intrigued me. Normally, carpenters, masons, and roofers would be too… Read more: RANDOM ACTS

My first memories of sobbing were in wet beds. When my wailing attracted my parents, their raging made me vomit. When they slammed the door, sometimes leaving me no choice but to sleep in my own mess, I learned to dissipate my frustrated energy by rhythmically moving my limbs. To this day, a jiggling ankle… Read more: MIDNIGHT LULUBIES

“And the women who let them,” my lesbian friend quipped when I mentioned starting Laura Bates’ book “Men Who Hate Women.” Her spontaneous response caught me off guard, and though we both laughed nervously, her words would haunt me through my journey with Bates’ unflinching exploration of modern misogyny. As a gay man approaching seventy,… Read more: THE MIRRORS WE AVOID: A Personal Reflection on Bias and Belonging

Cowardice and carelessness once shaped my nature like a sculptor’s hasty hands, leaving rough edges where definition might have been. I let fear whittle away at possibility until withdrawal became my art form. But sometimes, retreat opens unexpected doors. Since the election, I’ve been detoxifying from years of political addiction. Though I won’t avoid news… Read more: THE MONSTER’S MIRROR: A Political Withdrawal

Less than one percent of breast cancer diagnoses occur in males. I thought this statistical rarity would make it easier to approach with humor, to treat it all as some cosmic joke. But as I sat in my car outside the Imaging Center, the phrase “What the hell?” kept echoing in my mind. Not because… Read more: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MURAL

The world first started spinning while I was pruning tomato plants. One moment I was reaching for a yellowed leaf; the next, I was face-down in the bush beans. The fall earned me a prescription for prednisone and a referral to physical therapy, where I arrived the day after the election looking like a deposed… Read more: HOOKED: A Story of Vertigo and Recovery

Dawn crept over St. Augustine, Florida like a hangover on November 6th as I hobbled down my front path to retrieve my Harris/Walz yard sign. Trump had won, and my garden – a nightmare tangle of Chinese Fans, Seminole Hibiscus, and Slash Pines – seemed to mirror the nation’s chaos. The plants had grown wild… Read more: A PERFORMANCE FOR NO ONE: Election Morning in Paradise

In the shadow of cathedral bells, they force-fed us their stories— conquistadors’ gods wrapped in gold, reservation saints bound in barbed wire. We stumbled through their maze of white-washed history, nearly committed for asking why. They might have listened when we offered our empty pockets, our full hearts beating like drums in the streets. Instead,… Read more: CHANGED

The morning of his second election, before waking up my screens went dark in protest— graphite escaped from splitting pencils while ink dried in abandoned pens and keyboards froze solid refusing to type the horror. Before dawn could find me I lay counting breaths letting panic seep away like thunder fading into morning silence while… Read more: BEFORE ARMOR

As a landscaper, I’m drawn to water’s transformative power. In childhood, my fascination began with storm drains where rain mixed with sewage and oil, creating toxic urban springs. I dreamed of purifying these flows, channeling them through gravel beds and filtering bogs until they became crystalline pools cascading down woodland slopes. Last night, I found… Read more: Wet Dreams before an Election

The sun glints amber through our east-facing screen porch, but something’s wrong. “It looks like it’s setting,” I tell Dave, moving only my lips while he flips through “New Scientist.” We wear dark glasses in the September dawn, watching our North Florida backyard jungle and our cats weaving between us. I sit motionless as an… Read more: A Hurricane in Vertigo Season

“You know you wouldn’t be half bad if you got better,” my mother said of my singing when she was ninety-five. Though I’d heard it subliminally throughout my life, dementia had stripped her filters, making her frankness almost endearing. A decade earlier, I’d discovered music could redirect her endless questions about going home. Standards drew… Read more: BINGO

Though I’d dreamed of Judy Garland’s spotlight, my origin story played out in a storm drain pipe behind our Stamford home. No makeup towels or footlights – just daddy long legs and gravel echoing in a dank vortex beneath my hands and knees. When they found me, the cop’s gentle tone told me what I… Read more: Not Starborn

Brunswick School for Boys was founded in 1902 Greenwich, Connecticut to prevent the “softening” of privileged masculinity. By the 1960s, when I attended, their Victorian ideals persisted. Behind the motto “Courage, Honor, Truth,” the Brunswick Bear logo’s unspoken mission was to prevent boys from becoming “fags.” We marched single file through creaking hallways in brown… Read more: BEARS AND BOYS

When Hurricane Esther formed off Africa’s western Sahara in September 1961, I was already intimate with turbulence. The newly launched TIROS satellite tracked her 150-mph winds as she teased the Eastern Seaboard – much like my mother’s moods swept through our Stamford, Connecticut household, unpredictable and fierce. Our stretch of privileged coastline, that gilded nipple… Read more: ESTHER ISLAND

I’m not surprised Dave and I rushed to get our house listed before the height of hurricane season. Our reasons, like Freudian slips swirling off the coast of Africa, mixed with our asking price, growing interest rates, politics, and “back to school” market lethargy, resulted in no traffic during three open houses. Our realtor chose… Read more: LOVE LETTER to a Landfill

 The north end of St. Augustine’s Anastasia Island was a lowland salt swamp until 1925, when millionaire developer David P. Davis purchased 1,500 acres of sand spit and mangrove swamp and began dredging. No one imagined he’d plunge from a luxury liner’s stateroom window, never to be seen again. The word “shores” usually conjures impressionist… Read more: DIE AUGENKLAPPE

PRIDE

As my wired wooden bones hobble toward the bathroom this morning, I wonder when I became someone who likes air conditioning. I used to love melting in the sun like a buttery tiger from Little Black Sambo before Ron DeSantis became governor. Now, as republicans grab power and I recline on my adjustable bed with… Read more: UNFURLING

A Red Wing Blackbird says, “conk-la-reel.” The news says, “Authorities say the group of seven young people beat a man, unprovoked, and stabbed him in the thigh while making anti-gay remarks.” You say, “Can we listen to something else?” heading into the garden. I say, “Sure.” You say I’m addicted to bad news since I… Read more: Paradise, with Complications

“I’m gonna make it harder for you to die,” I said, grabbing garden tools from my truck bed and heading toward Eileen’s precious backyard, devastated by cold and floods. At eighty-eight, she reads minds as I do at sixty nine, probably sensing my boyish need to fix things for women who might vanish like my… Read more: HEALING GROUND

The call of the open road beckoned me backwards. After eighteen years of jumping from one relationship to another to avoid being alone, I buckled up for the next 2,500 miles with only my dog. Phantoms began awakening on the George Washington Bridge before secrets from earlier road trips stuck their thumbs out for a… Read more: Picking Up Ghosts

Though hardy vegetation was typical heading north, by late June Lake Michigan disguised the nearness of Canada with soft silvers and muted greens – colors April would have known the names for. I told myself the hues were from steady wind or the reflective moody sky, but like everything else in my life, I had… Read more: SHARP TEETH

“How old are you?” the woman driving asked as I hopped in the back of her station wagon beside her two young daughters. “Seventeen,” I said, lying. “Well, you look twelve. Does your mother know you’re out here?” The collect call from Cleveland echoed in my mind – my voice steady through the motel phone,… Read more: FUGUE STATE

My father gunned his impatient BMW toward I-80, determined to get me past the George Washington Bridge. Stuck in high traffic, the unyielding bridge rivets and dreamlike far reaches of the Hudson River burnished themselves into my psyche. I watched Cochise and his band of scouts on the Palisades, saw Hiawatha leap from a high… Read more: HIAWATHA

After several days and hard nights peeling away layers of my own skin writing, I was at my wits end when I thought I felt Sarah’s brother tingling up my spine. At some point, everyone I’ve ever met has shown concern for my mental health. I’d been slaving away for corporations tapping into unseen forces… Read more: SARAH’S BROTHER

The call of the open road beckoned me backwards. By 1993, I’d travelled enough to never want to travel again. I’d gone from one relationship to another for eighteen years to avoid being alone and buckled up for the next 2,500 miles with only my dog. Phantoms began awakening on the George Washington Bridge before… Read more: TRAVELOGUE

Four hundred years ago, indigenous people farmed the vast fertile plains west of the Pequonnock. Other than for shellfish, the Paugussetts had little use for the flood prone lowlands to the east. After Europeans brought disease and stole the rest of their land, what remained of the once great tribe hid out among the forests… Read more: BEAUTIFUL MEN IN THE WORLD

“I’m gonna’ make it harder for you to die,” I said, grabbing garden tools from the bed of my truck and heading toward Eileen’s precious backyard which had been devastated by cold and floods. At eighty-five, Eileen knows I’m easily bored and like to keep everyone on their toes. “You might have enjoyed my father… Read more: YARDWORK

After reading about writers awakened by inspiration who claimed their masterworks were dictated by the unseen, then transcribing a few of my own dreams into failed musicals, my muses continue to be patient. Though I don’t believe in any religious deities, I first noticed invisible help as a child while improvising on the piano then… Read more: WHALES

I never thought I’d want friends around my death bed. Even after spending a recent decade visiting my parents in nursing homes among doctors and staff while getting to know other residents and their family’s stories, I never imagined needing others able to love me in my final hours until seeing my friend Doug a… Read more: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO DOUG MARKOWITZ?

I never thought I’d want friends around my death bed. Even after spending a recent decade visiting my parents in nursing homes among doctors and staff while getting to know other residents and their family’s stories, I never imagined needing others able to love me in my final hours until visiting my friend Doug a… Read more: WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO DOUG MARKOWITZ?

Other than musical theater ensembles, which are hardly the same, the last time I sang in a legitimate choir was at a college in Vermont in 1980. After being cooped up with my partner and her two kids eight miles from the Canadian border, hippie life was wearing thin. Rather than admitting I was gay,… Read more: SWEAT

The couple who bought the house behind us with “armies of nieces and nephews,” finally finished building their pool. “For the grandkids, hopefully by this summer or at least before they’re off to college,” Chrissy from Long Island squawked, complaining about St. Augustine’s drug-addled workforce. Though their firepit and patios are still unfinished and masonry… Read more: SACAGAWEA

Maybe it was from chewing on lead sinkers while fishing as a kid, but I’ve always suspected I might have brain damage. Doctors said lots of kids reverse numbers, count on fingers, and learn things the hard way. Though getting sucked into tornadoes like Dorothy is typical for people with dyslexia, it never occurred to… Read more: THE VORTEX

Will I ever hear spring again without Cardinals singing “Covid, Covid, Covid?” was the last thing I wrote before I quit trying to write and turned my attention to NPR. Two months later, “All Things Considered” jumped from the refugee crisis to a gay New York Times columnist whose recent memoir “The Beauty of Dusk,”… Read more: THE MYSTERY OF FRANK BRUNI

Noticing my tendency to bare my soul with everyone I meet, my husband Dave’s Catholic mother said, I “talk to worms on the street.” Though I’ve never been to confession and I’m as candid with therapists as mail carriers, honesty has nothing to do with Judgement Day. Barlow had been a dairy farm, possibly a… Read more: SCHOOLHOUSE

“Molto Bello Bambino,” said an Italian maid pinching my cheek as a pair of homely squabs blinked at me from the balcony of the Hotel Flora in Rome. All my memories of being dragged through Europe for six weeks by my grandparents include pigeons. While taking in as many historic sites possible, at age eight,… Read more: ORIENTATION

“How much further,” my mother asked, waiting for the light to change in front of the Harlem Valley Psychiatric Hospital. After increasing miles of fields and woodlands, unmarred by human exploits, Barlow was only a half hour beyond the looming brick madhouse, notorious for its groundbreaking lobotomies. Though my mother disowned her people, and my… Read more: VIEWPOINT

After my heart attack twenty years ago, I refused physical therapy and sat scowling like a stray dog on a hospital bed with a sandbag on my groin. The cardiologist went in through my femoral artery and positioned six rice-sized, lobster trap-looking stents in my coronary arteries which I’d consider the rest of my life.… Read more: LONGEVITY SPINACH

“Can I get some skates before the ice melts,” I asked my mother after Peggy Fleming brought home the gold, figure skating in the ’68 winter Olympics. Mothers in my Connecticut neighborhood bought their thirteen-year old’s new bikes, flippers, polo shirts, tennis rackets and 8-track tape players, but not mine. Though she grew up poor… Read more: SHIVERING

My sister and I share enduring memories of staying with strange families while my parents travelled. Why wouldn’t we appreciate chalets in Vermont, summer homes on the Cape, Nantucket or off the coast of Maine and their old-monied owners, nostalgic for previous eras who offered us mousy sleeping bags in rambling porches, boat houses and… Read more: THE SWIMMER

Should one bid Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to someone like me? Less jolly than usual by others Hell bent on making this time of year seem joyous, I normally sigh rather than discuss making any season artificially bright. I like the dark and would rather be understood, than shamed for feeling more estranged than… Read more: WISH ME LUCK

Should one bid Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to someone like me? Less jolly than usual by others Hell bent on making this time of year seem joyous, I normally sigh rather than discuss making any season artificially bright. I like the dark and would rather be understood, than shamed for feeling more estranged than… Read more: WISH ME LUCK

Though everyone else thought my parents were beguiling and attractive, to me they were Martians. Everything about them was challenging, beginning with their names. I cringed hearing the name “Dick” for obvious reasons, and “Ruby” sounded painful like a rueful, bloody stone. Their ominous presence caused brooding book titles to mysteriously appear in front of… Read more: MARTIANS

“Sit down aunty Iris,” Rory Halifax insisted, rowing their overloaded dinghy after his aging British aunt tried to stand with her martini. “Do sit,” Mr. Halifax said, beseeching his batty sister who rarely could be reached. “Mind the captain darling,” Mrs. Halifax added, recapping protocol, while yanking Iris down on Rory’s younger brother Finn, without… Read more: ALBATROSS

“I’ve got a marked propensity towards procrastination,” I boasted, proud to be something other than irritating to our Berea college girl Wilda. Governesses once cared for families in the waterfront neighborhood my parents moved us into after my father started designing shopping malls. The few black housekeepers remaining, who’d raised the privileged kids from earlier… Read more: HELP

Not knowing what else to do in the final hours of my mother’s life, I fired up karaoke and Dave and I sang “If Momma was Married,” from the musical “Gypsy.” Explaining it was one of her favorite songs, I asked a nurse’s aide to shoot a video for posterity. I’d shot one of my… Read more: BED BATH AND BEYOND

Not knowing what else to do in the final hours of my mother’s life, I fired up karaoke and Dave and I sang “If Momma was Married,” from the musical “Gypsy.” Explaining it was one of her favorite songs, I asked a nurse’s aide to shoot a video for posterity. I’d shot one of my… Read more: BED BATH AND BEYOND

When I was two, a cop found me and my friend Timmy asleep in a storm drain in the woods behind our house. Connecticut state police searched for hours and were preparing to drag a nearby river when one of them located us curled up together. “Oblivious,” my mother called our napping through the shouting… Read more: THE LEATHERMAN

I loved April the minute I saw her, beginning with her name. I mouthed it too myself watching the tanned, part primate, part I-didn’t-know-what with a brown pixie-cut in a crepe-checkered sundress sip on a flower. Her steamy June lawn wafted with honeysuckle as immediately after introducing herself, she bit off a blossom end and… Read more: APRIL

I first heard my father had a girlfriend from my mother who spilled the beans while they perused retirement village catalogues. Trying to address lifestyle changes that his failing health imposed, they’d visited a few places when I heard my mother ask what kind of community he’d have chosen for him and “Lela” to live… Read more: WHY?

After discussing suicide with my mother throughout her life, I was surprised she waited ‘til her mid-nineties to lunge headfirst from her wheelchair. Though a lifelong depressive irritated by everything, I thought my mother was too spineless to do it ‘til she did.  Though she never sought therapy, she discussed killing herself like others did… Read more: HOW COULD I?

After discussing suicide with my mother throughout her life, I was surprised she waited ‘til her mid-nineties to drop headfirst from her wheelchair. Though a lifelong depressive irritated by everything, I thought my mother was too spineless to do it ‘til she did. Though she never sought therapy, she discussed killing herself like others did… Read more: HOW COULD I?

So what does “Aging Gracefully” mean if anything at all? Does it mean keeping a low profile as we decline into the “hoary age” so as not to trouble juveniles with the inevitability of doom or is it about etiquette or maintaining a dancer’s physique? Why even consider a dignified decline? Who benefits if we… Read more: AGING GRACEFULLY

“How is it possible for today to be so much better than yesterday,” I wondered this morning delivering Agave pups from my front yard to my elderly neighbor.  When we first moved to Florida, Sally appeared ancient on the other side of our shared fence. Now in her mid-seventies, “she looks younger than me,” I… Read more: RUTS

My cardiologist said I need at least 20 minutes a day of aerobic exercise daily. I’m reluctant to be one of those power walkers ’cause they “look so stupid,” I thought before reminding my mind, “we don’t say shit like that anymore.” Since my brush with death, I catch it revving and its been lot… Read more: EXORCISING

“I would drop it if I could,” he screamed like a bald Rapunzel in a prison tower. “That’s her story, not mine!”  His story was about a boy who was born into a family where something was always wrong. Growing up where nothing was ever just right taught him he wasn’t either and nothing else… Read more: SHENANDOAH

“Get me the fuck off this magic wand,” I thought before I woke up, gyrating on a broomstick to a country song, wondering if wearing a different pair of jeans might make my message more universal.  Despite being a lifelong cynic, people tell me what a pleasure I am to know. At this point, even… Read more: HAPPY HALLOWEEN

I had my first heart attack twenty years ago. I smoked back then and the first thing I did after getting five stents was grab a Marlboro Light. I reluctantly quit soon after for obvious reasons, but rather than embracing my new lease on life, subliminal gloom returned. Mortality swooped interestingly close which was oddly… Read more: GOOD MORNING

Neither of my parents had a sense of humor. Whenever I said that, they disagreed as they did with most of my opinions. They would’ve preferred hearing how appreciative I was to be raised at all, but like Frankenstein’s monster, the shred of self-preservation which kept me ungrateful, also prevented me from flinging myself headfirst… Read more: PUNCH LINES

I’d been struggling on and off with an invasive weed in our front beds called Torpedo grass, so I Googled for a solution on the internet. Amid the extreme suggestions and harsh chemicals, I had to do something, but what? Attending to anything especially these days, has always been a bit like reading tea leaves… Read more: BLUE ORIGIN

I lay on an examination table using a Bic lighter to ignite the white sheet I’d covered myself with, then quickly lay back down. The fire licking my ankles felt like a warm foot bath and when the flames dripped to the floor, the gasoline I’d apparently poured there, ignited far more gently than I… Read more: FIREBOMB

Once upon a time in early June, a miserable man hiking alone in some remote woods happened upon the same small, cleared valley he’d often found in his dreams. At the base of the valley was a small swimming pond where picknickers and bathers enjoyed glorious Saturdays. The weather was always so perfect, even the… Read more: THREE DREAMS

Last winter’s freeze in Texas led to shutting down chemical plants that produce resin for fiberglass swimming pools, which led me to no longer selling them, which led me to non-stop writing 130 pages of a bleak memoir, which led me to quit writing it, which led me to searching for light, which led me… Read more: I’M BACK

Thanks again for all your lovely birthday wishes yesterday. Resting upon my sixty sixth milestone in a recycled party hat in a clump of invasive bamboo, I can’t pretend to be fond of birthdays. I was one of those kids who spent them alone in my room or drunk in the woods, so now if… Read more: MY REVIEW

Johnny coats make me feel sorry for myself. I can camp in the woods, be vulnerable in the presence of strangers and cordial while naked at swimming holes but I can’t “make nice” with anesthesiologists. I’m used to dealing with most situations, neighbors, clients and check out lines with the charm and dexterity of an… Read more: WHAT’S THE FIRE FOR?

Johnny coats make me feel sorry for myself. I can camp in the woods, be vulnerable in the presence of strangers and cordial while naked at swimming holes but I can’t “make nice” with anesthesiologists. I’m used to dealing with most situations, neighbors, clients and check out lines with the charm and dexterity of an… Read more: WHAT’S THE FIRE FOR?

After becoming 90% blind in one eye two weeks ago, the only thing I can gaze at these days are clouds. Everything else is distorted. Shopping center traffic and department store interiors are the worst. Tunnel vision at speeds above 20 mph will take major getting used to. Whether watching ocean waves or scenery in… Read more: SHIVER ME TIMBERS

I woke up early at about 4:30 am on June 15th and noticed something abnormal was happening in my left eye. At first I thought it was one side of my sleeping face being smushed hard for too long against my pillow. I’d had similar temporary blindness before for several long seconds as an eye… Read more: EARLY BLESSING

I received a text from a good friend announcing he and his husband were moving from St. Augustine to St. Petersburg, FL. They’d lived in a charming clapboard victorian in Lincolnville for over twenty years but without asking, I knew why they were leaving. Doomed with great weather, natural beauty, historic sites, spectacular grand hotels… Read more: COSTA RICA

Rather than politics, bored with meditation and other podcasts, for several nights I’ve been watching Netflix’ “Haunting of…” series. Now every noise or reflection from the corner of my eye catches my attention – my cat staring at a wall, even a lizard choosing not scurry away as I walk the lonely paths of my… Read more: BOO

I choose to write because it feels healthier than choosing not to. I’m extroverted. Rather than memoiring in a garret while in therapy, I prefer breaching social bounderies in checkout lines and shining my moons of mania wherever I go, then writing about it. I wax and wane on Facebook, to my house and garden… Read more: NAH

We often bring our two cats Pablo and Wincey to sit with us when we sit on the front porch. As kittens they sat on our laps in the living room by the wood stove. They normally lived in the kitchen and sunroom because their hair was too much for the rest of the house.… Read more: LUCKY AND/OR BLESSED

On and off for about 15 years I’ve had blood in my urine. I’ve also had trouble peeing and taken drugs to make it easier. Recently my PSA reached abnormal levels so I had an MRI which showed my enlarged prostate has lesions which will be biopsied next week.  The process involves inserting a catheter… Read more: NO MATTER WHAT

I was at a stoplight when I noticed hip-hop music throbbing from the car beside me and a girl behind the wheel twerking and jerking with abandon. We were both alone. She in rhythm and I, motionless listening to how Republicans were plotting to oust Liz Cheney when I began thinking of how little I’ve… Read more: ANOTHER COLD MORNING IN FLORIDA

When Dave brought me a plate of eggs just now I looked up, batted my eyelids and said, “ awe thanks Mom.” For many kids on Friday evenings in the 50’s, being glued to “Lassie” with tipsy adults quarreling in the background was not unusual. Unlike my smart, attractive parents or simpering Timmy, Lassie was… Read more: TIMMY

Among the myriad of lessons from Covid, Boredom in 20/20 has presented unique challenges with attendant revelations. Its direct link to childhood depression, addiction and creativity is as stark as these last few frigid Christmas days here in sunny Florida.I can’t endure any more television yet can no longer sit outside watching wildlife without freezing… Read more: BOREDOM

He was an architect who designed the first outlet mall near I95 in St. Augustine. I regularly pass it on my way to sell pools out in the county. Unlike my Dad, who often complained of the restrictive influence and poor taste of shopping center developers, most of my clients are great. When I traded… Read more: THANKS DAD

Over the weekend there were QAnon demonstrators at the foot of St. Augustine’s beloved Bridge of Lions waving “Pizza gate was real!” signs at tourists. Overwhelmed by vicious politics and counterpart kittens on social media, my need to remain informed is rotten and ready to be tossed. I will no longer allow the devil’s den… Read more: RELIEF

I live in a charming neighborhood among million dollar waterfront properties and more modest homes on the tip of an elegant island that oozes with Florida history. Formerly a salt marsh, our yard was dredged from the Matansas river in the 30’s. The Matansas, which means “slaughter” in Spanish, ran red in 1565 with the… Read more: TIS THE SEASON

A long time ago I decided there are only four fundamental colors in landscapes – green, blue, chartreuse and maroon. Green is all shades of green, blue includes silvers, chartreuse is chartreuse and maroon comprises coppers and purples. Without all four artfully placed, something’s missing. Fickle flower colors don’t count. I similarly categorize contrasting textures… Read more: JIM BINGHAM’S WORLD FAMOUS DISCOUNT PLANTS

It began in a huge thunderstorm at a WaWa convenience store in 1998. I’d been considering a way out of an abusive relationship, when across the checkout counter I saw the most beautiful man in the world. At the moment we locked eyes, a flash of light shot from a lingering raindrop on his eyelash.… Read more: ANGELS

I woke up this morning late for work wishing I was as dependable as my sprinklers. The well pump wakes me every morning at 7:10, barely enough time to let out my whiney cats, hit the coffee button, check my appointments, pet their butts, give them their fucking fresh water and hit the shower. Wincey… Read more: BIRTH OF A SALESMAN

It’s 4:00 AM and I can’t sleep. Ever since my recent, long overdue physical where I was prescribed Cipro and some other strong antibiotic horse pill, twice daily to address a high PSA and a UTI, my gut growls non stop. At least after six weeks selling swimming pools, I’m no longer stressed about it,… Read more: GETTING EVEN

Bermuda Shoals Way, Heron Hyde and Tarpon Trace along with thousands of other soon-to-be streets in St. John’s County don’t show up on GPS yet, so some new homeowners who want fiberglass pools in brand new developments give me coordinates. Today 30.0847° N, 81.4820° W and “beige with white trim” got me to “Beachwalk.” Twenty… Read more: NO MORE BUGS

My grandfather was an architect. In 1960 he turned over his business to his “Madman” son, who’s charisma, design sense and need to be away from his family grew the firm greatly. My father drove a Jaguar XKE, and various BMWs to-and-from Manhattan to Connecticut, where he appeared for cocktails and weekend tennis. I vaguely… Read more: RENDERING

So much for singing at nursing homes. After being shut down for three months, state guidlines requiring Airbnb guest screening, dry-cleaning and disinfecting destroyed it’s ease, fun and profit, so I called the guy who built our pool to see if he had any labor work. Suddenly Dave became his accountant/bookkeeper and I’m designing fiberglass… Read more: THE FIBERGLASS LIFESTYLE

Three nights ago I awoke thinking it was time to throw out my sex toys. We have weekly pickup around here but after watching the trash guys come across them, I was at my leather and lube table having a tag sale on the Titanic when I remembered, tag sales are a thing of the… Read more: TITTY PINK

After laying awake all night, this morning I called a friend. While discussing worst case scenarios to air them out and… prepare, my sister who’s been sequestered in San Francisco called. Her tenant who lives downstairs emailed her this morning saying he has has a fever from the virus. He was tested yesterday. She’ll be… Read more: BETTER ANGELS

Using an upcoming singing audition to probe soul-level wounds for signs of healing seemed a good idea. How else does one inspect the condition of lifelong scars? What if the thin skin grown while attending to other things conceals festering welts and boils? I’ve historically been drawn to exposing my vulnerabilities and rarely bite my… Read more: A PRAYER

We arrived at outpatient surgery around 11:30. By noon I was butt naked in a Johnny coat fiddling with my phone while Dave perused science magazines he’d brought to kill time. The weight of the last month was relieved. Finally, I was about to have the dreaded surgery. I’d fasted, enima’d, had an annoying headache… Read more: UNBECOMING

Deck the Halls Deck the halls with boughs of hollyDeck the halls with boughs of holy‘Tis the season to be jollyDon we now our gay apparelTroll the ancient Yuletide carolSee the blazing yule before usStrike the harp and join the chorus Silent NightSilent night, holy night,All is calm, all is bright;Round yon Virgin, Mother and… Read more: CHRISTMAS CAROL LYRICS

Truth, once free as a lion, can no longer take care of itself. When facts are ruthlessly hunted, shot then stuffed full of lies, they appear real Speaking truth to power puts targets on our backs and between our eyes. When voting is rigged in favor of the poachers, what else can we effectively do?

When I arrived in Florida, my first singing gig was at at a well-run assisted living facility, but within months the once cheerful activity director divulged why she and half the staff of were abruptly leaving. The place had been bought by a corporation who’d taken over twelve other privately run “communities” statewide. Despite the… Read more: MATADOR

An old friend texted me saying she was hurt by a recent post admitting my “boredom” lately with people and friendships. Forged young and desperate in boarding school, our mutual traumas were solid ground for an uncommon bond that’s lasted fifty years, so I apologized, then delved in further, hoping I wouldn’t make things worse.… Read more: THE HONEY TREE