Category: Life 2011
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Stepping through the retirement door
Should retirement be scary? Presumably the answer is no, providing you have your ducks lined up. This generally includes having a decent pension (if you are lucky enough to have one), a well stocked 401-K, maybe an IRA or two and a house that is either paid off or close to being paid off. Ideally,…
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A study in sleep
Over the years, I’ve slept in some strange places. A year or so back, I spent an uncomfortable night in a sleeping bag behind a partition in a church sanctuary. Last Friday night found me trying and mostly failing to fall asleep in a comfortable bed in a bedroom wedged inside a modern office building.…
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A place called Oak Hill
My memories of November are typically memories of darkness and dreariness. Here in Virginia it means minimal daylight, with the sun approaching the horizon around 4:30 in the afternoon. It’s generally not cold enough to snow, but the weather patterns usually blow in moist air, which fills the skies with dark cumulonimbus clouds. Rain, when…
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Processing Petrina
I found myself sleeping poorly on Monday night. I tossed and turned for hours and when I stumbled into sleep I returned to the same dream I could not escape. My name was Pete and I was coming out, not as a homosexual, but as a transgender. I was going to become Petrina. This would…
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Life among the landlocked
I wonder how many workers in Los Angeles who live on one side of the sprawling metropolis would book a room in a hotel on the other side for three nights to attend a conference because they didn’t want to deal with the traffic. I’m guessing not many LA’ers would consider this possibility, even if…
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Free and clear
Protestors on Wall Street and elsewhere are occupying spots in major cities, trying to make the top one percent acknowledge the ninety nine percent. Many are without jobs. Those with jobs may have taken pay cuts, or were forced to go part time, or were required to contribute more toward health care or retirement. Many…
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The virtues and pitfalls of fellowship
Ever notice how people tend to congregate with people who act and behave a lot like them? I am no exception. I live in a middle class suburb, quite similar to the one I grew up in, with people mostly of my race and around my income level. Our weekends are spent on domestic things…
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Shake, rattle and roll
I like things stable. One of the reasons I have concerns about retiring on the west coast is because I don’t want to find the ceiling on top of me at three a.m. That could hurt. So I live on the east coast instead where earthquakes are not entirely unknown, but they are so infrequent…
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Backtalk, Part 3
Time for more belated replies to dated comments. To C.R. Lea on Thoughts on Buddhism, Part One. My study of Buddhism is somewhat superficial, but I don’t believe that Buddha claimed God had told him to tell others about his thoughts. Buddha likely did believe in reincarnation, as did the Hindus whose community he inhabited.…
Occam's Razor 