I’m washing a white bowl in the kitchen sink. The bowl is round, twelve inches in diameter, five inches deep. Hands down it’s my favorite bowl in our kitchen, useful for mixing pasta with a sauce, the perfect size for a big salad. In the cupboard where it’s kept, three smaller bowls nest inside it.…More
Tag Archives: friendship
Broken–passing, stopping, showing up
“You’re going to freeze your ass off,” Tizi says. I’m piling tin-foil food containers on a tray so I can walk them over to the neighbors. It’s a February evening in Michigan, dark at 6:00 p.m., cold and damp. There’s no snow to speak of, just bone-chilling 30 degree weather, what my mother-in-law called “aria…More
And Now This–lunch, pain, and redemption
My wife says I have plumber’s butt. We’re in the kitchen. She’s applying a lotion that’s supposed to help with my lower back pain. I’m a drug man, myself. Every six hours I’ve been hitting the Ibuprofen and extra-strength Tylenol. “Better living through chemicals,” my dentist friend Dennis says. Better living through stretching my MD…More
What’s Not to Love–rare books and earthly love by night
When pleasures take you by surprise, they are so much sweeter. Last night we attended a lecture in the rare book room at the Oliveriani Museum in Pesaro. I was not prepared to enjoy it so much. Not one but two notable art history scholars spoke. The discourse was learned, the vocabulary was specialized, and…More
The Rule of One–An Essay on Aging and Moderation
This essay was initially published in American English, Italian Chocolate. Apply pressure and elevate. I know that’s how you stop bleeding. But this is my nose. I just cut it shaving. A careless flick of the razor and I caught the wing of my right nostril. The gore, the gore. I don’t know how to…More