I am no longer in the fishbowl.

The fishbowl being my term for life as a cancer patient. An invisible thing, but a barrier separating you from those who are not experiencing anything close to what you are experiencing. It even has a distorting effect on how you see the world much like a fishbowl would.

Patients themselves seem to be aware that we are not one lump of generalized experience; we each have our own fishbowls, and we ask about each others' experiences knowing they…

- or - LEMURIANS DO IT BETTER!

- or - My Day

Got a message in my email from a New Age sound healer that “Brand New! The Lemurian tuning forks are finally here!”…

     Ascetic abstention & abnegation, in & of themselves, are not a sufficient means towards the end of an achievement of moral soundness or psychospiritual edification & fruition. In other words, merely refraining…

The Boston Public Library is a place that inspires conflicting emotions in me; it was here that I retreated during a period of great uncertainty in my life, between jobs, to see if I could become an inventor.  I buried myself in the patent library, then a collection of use-worn books and microfilm, along with a regular group of obvious crackpots, trying to develop a coffee warmer whose temperature would decrease as the weight of the pot was reduced by the gradual removal of the liquid…

Before I post this one, I'll add this note: Poor Woman asked a question about the origins of PoB in her comment over on Open Salon: "Still curious as to what got you going on such an extensive project, jmac. It's a fun read, but a curious one."

I sent the following explanation in a PM and thought it might be of interest to those who read this first draft:

About five years ago after a visit in Dallas, Texas with my oldest and best friend, David Petersen, who teaches…

Brisk morning outing

light from the back window…

^ ^

We had friends over for Thanksgiving.  Like us they live far from their children and none of us wanted to spend the holiday by ourselves or in a restaurant surrounded by strangers which is much like being alone.  We are all strangely,…

The garden - west and east view…

I was wakened by the muffled ring of a regular alarm clock. Mila stumbled out of the bedroom and I got up from the sofa to join her for breakfast. Fred didn't show, presumably still sleeping.

While we were eating our cornflakes (something I would normally stick my nose up at, but I was still savoring every non-Nemeton moment) the phone rang. “For you,” said Mila, thrusting the…

Cold so sharp

that shadows

bite into the hardened…

Pale skies at twilight

promises more snow…

CAMP DAVID, Md.  President Barack Obama declared Friday a National Day of Leftovers after a Thanksgiving Day Dinner that included a dish prepared by Marian Robinson, his mother-in-law, that he pushed around on his plate but did not finish.…

Stardust

By David Glenn Cox

We were stardust once, in the uncounted eons of a fathomless universe, brilliant, but unaware. We were mountains, tall, majestic, forested, but cold and snow covered, until, the winds of time and the tears of Earth washed us away and we were the sea floor, but only for a…

                                                                 SATURDAYS, 5:00-5:30 pm (Eastern)              

TUNE IN  to 

               …

broderie anglaise: open embroidery, typically in floral patterns, on fine cotton or linen.

origin: mid 19th century: French, literally English embroidery.

Summary of the amusement

Standing on a window-cleaning platform…

The Seventy Fourth Scroll

After he signed and affixed the King’s seal to the …

Crystal clear icicles

melting slowly…

Under first snow

red maple leaves soften

returning to the…