I have a list of time sensitive stuff I need to be attending to and every time I look at it, I can’t focus.  There they are, swimming in front of me, the soul-destroying articles of an over-scheduled, self-employed life: taxes, emissions, ink cartridges, Easter ham, April billing, water-color classes (Five items, all dependent on  Read the Rest…

Let me begin by saying I am supposed to be thinking of something else besides the subject of this post. It all began when I made an attempt to get out of some work. When The OK Chorale finishes a quarter’s worth of rehearsals, we sing somewhere in the community.  The Christmas season has a  Read the Rest…

I would never have decided to read Ulysses all on my own.  But my friend Nancy invited me to join her in a project of reading one episode a week, and I thought there are worse ways to spend four months.  I knew that Ulysses is considered Difficult.  Whole college courses are devoted to this  Read the Rest…

Public Utility bills began coming to Seth Burnside at my address last November.  At first I thought the bills had been mis-delivered as they sometimes are.  But it was my address, and my house that I have owned for 15 years.  I sent the bills back with “No such resident” written on the envelopes.  A  Read the Rest…

When I take a walk to the south of my house, I usually begin with a slight jog east through Crown Hill cemetery because the only reason to go due south is to visit my neighbor Gwen who knows something about just about everything.  Gwen is not a point of interest on a walk: she’s  Read the Rest…

The other day was stunningly beautiful here in Seattle, a day so fresh, it smelled like both snow and spring.  I stayed in all day, feeling puny but longing to be out of doors.  Today when I feel like a walk, it’s overcast and raining. So I will imagine a walk one mile to the  Read the Rest…

I was in Portland this weekend.  Oregon.  I was there just long enough to know which way to turn when I stepped out of the elevator without having to squint at the hall sign, trying to determine if 415 came before or after 428. I traveled down on the train. I had a stack of  Read the Rest…

Gifts are the most fun and the most fraught devices in the American Christmas season which begins the day after Labor Day with the first sighting of the little drummer boy and ends with the breaking of New Year’s resolution at about 12:01 AM New Year’s Day. Let me digress for a rant here about  Read the Rest…

Anyone remember my Boar’s Head? The short version is that two years ago The OK Chorale sang “The Boar’s Head Carol” and the kindergarten class of Gail, alto, made a Boar’s Head of paper maché and fabric to use in a processional.  We processed our Boar’s Head laden with cookies instead of “bedecked with bay  Read the Rest…

Ballard is a Seattle neighborhood.  A former student of mine has a riff where she describes the two faces of Ballard:  There’s the old Scandinavian community, the fishing boats, brick houses, and the Nordic Heritage Museum.  And the new Ballard that sits at Cupcake Royale with their Macs, looking important and saying, “I am so  Read the Rest…