Category: My Past
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Four Women & One Bird Shit
I recall watching the Mike Nichols 1971 film Carnal Knowledge in or around 1980 at the Showcase Cinema, a repertory theater in Sacramento that is now a parking lot. I remember wondering if I would ever see the kind of action the principal actors were getting. Up to that moment,…
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Tom’s Hook and My Short Arms: A Six Sentence Story
Tom was a soft-spoken, friendly IT analyst, and I would deliver mail and intra-agency communiques to him many times a week way back in the Nineties. Another thing about Tom is that he has a prosthesis on his right forearm. One cold morning, while walking to my favorite coffee shop,…
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Big head. Balding big head. Overweight with a balding big head. Overweight with a balding and graying big head: My life in a few unflattering pictures
As a toddler, I might as well have worn a hat that said, “C-Section Baby” to remove all doubt from anyone who cast their eyes upon my giant head and thought, “How did mom birth that kid?” On second thought, I would have to wear a T-shirt–they wouldn’t be able…
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Faster reading than CliffNotes!
In high school, I fell in love with CliffNotes, not because it helped me read the classics. Ha! Right! I read the CliffNotes on our assigned readings and skipped the books. Needless to say, I did not do well in my English classes. Here’s another solution. Wrong Hands illustrator John…
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Commuting: A Personal History
I’m sitting on my scooter in a traffic jam at least two full city blocks long. I can see the light half of a block in front of me turns from green to red to back to green and red again. Within each light change, I move a little more than…
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The Triple – Redux
It’s the Post Season, and while my A’s aren’t in it, I am still excited. Excited in hoping the Cubs or the Nats do well. Excited in hoping the Yankees go down in flames. Excited in hoping the Astros do well. Excited in hoping the Indians go all the way,…
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The Ballad of the Codependent Rat
I was on my back, Judi was rocking on my pelvis, when a hurled stone shattered the window above us. I reflexively pulled Judi close to me, chest to chest. Later, she would say she felt safe with me as if I was protecting her, but let’s face it, Judi…
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First jobs & past friends
We all remember our first job and the people we worked for and worked alongside. The first time we had disposable income beyond chump change. It may have been the first time we ever didn’t work alone to earn money–unlike the proverbial lemonade stand, babysitting or lawn mowing gigs or…
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The “quest” for my Chamberlain connection
“The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry is like the potato–the best part under ground.” – Thomas Overbury Are you related to someone famous; a hero, perhaps? I am! Well, I’m not certain, to be honest. When I was in high school in the 1970s,…
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The night Dee Dee Ramone crushed my hand & other perils of getting up close
Recently I participated in one of those Facebook quizzes. This one was called “Ten live shows one is a lie. Which one?” I had to guess which show my Facebook Friend did not attend. One of the shows this friend wrote as a possible lie was The Ramones. I immediately…
BURGER SCOOT 