The Grumps don’t win
The Venetians built a church specially-designed for Vivaldi. A pair of 14 year old twins can increase my hope for the future. And the reason cows wear bells is because their horns don’t… Continue reading
Category Archive: people
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A Paris evening
A drunk woman is vaguely howling along with the Arabic music pumping from the radio she holds to her ear. The guys she with seem uninterested. African immigrants and refugees fill the shadows,… Continue reading
I miss my friends
Well, the good news is, almost everybody got a job. I’m trying to focus on that. The woman in her early 40s with the big smile, and the shy younger woman (who swears… Continue reading
Friends
Tall and dark, their food was spiced differently and they spoke of a place called Yugoslavia that sounded exotic and sad. But it was all just texture for the aunt, uncle, and two… Continue reading
Seeing America as a Sri Lankan cop
Sri Lankan city of kings, one of the oldest continually-occupied cities on Earth, and focal point of Theravada Buddhism for centuries, Anuradhapura has many claims to fame, but I was having trouble seeing… Continue reading
My experience with refugees
Refugees don’t come to America for a handout. They don’t come to take anyone’s job. They come because they are like you and me.
The Dutch woman in Macedonia who helps me with Trump
The Dutch lady was barely paying attention to our conversation. “It’s Bitola, not Bitola” she said, putting the stress on the first syllable instead of the second. BEET-ola. Grateful for the correction, I… Continue reading
Something unexpected and normal happened just now
I was well into my lineup of questions and answers, ordinal numbers and time sequences in class today, blue marker and red marker, hoping my students were getting something out of my antics… Continue reading
Hands Around Lake Merritt
Was election night as bad as it gets, or is the worst still to come? That sick feeling of disappointment, of alienation from your nation, of watching a big part of my demographic… Continue reading
Salvation and interference on a bus into Macedonia
We’d been like followers of some not very popular religions sect, gathering off-hours to worship in someone else’s oversized church. That’s how Thessaloniki’s train station felt during a rail strike, but a few… Continue reading
