Encounters

Circle of Silence

A prisoner of his ear plugs gets a buzz on his cell phone.

Notes on an Encounter with a Cult

Received a long lecture on the wisdom of Ken Wilber, New Age master of the proverbial cutting edge. Found the alarm bells going off in the back of my head -- cult! cult! cult! -- and finally said so when I could get half a word in edgewise.

Overheard, Overhead, Over the Hill

It's a sure sign of geriactrification when you realize that you were alive when the songs being played on drug store music systems came out.

Old Age Road Rage

I pulled up behind the creme-colored, old style, I'm-so-big-you-have-to-park-me-in-the-Great-Plains Cadillac at the corner of Aliso Creek and El Toro.

Passion and The Passion in Lake Forest

Sitting in a restaurant talking about how the movie moved us is not putting ourselves in the position of Jesus, who suffered the tortures, carried the cross, and expired with his hands and feet pinned to its wood while slowly suffocating.

The Expert on Shyness

I loitered after the Wednesday Writers tonight, talking to a friend and eavesdropping in on a speaker who exuberantly declaimed his expertise on the issue of shyness.

Blue Eyes Popping

A crew-cut-topped, goateed man maybe in his late thirties. Pressed blue plaid shirt. Pressed everything, for that matter. His eyes popped out of his head like he was on speed.

Tacky

Dump him.

Handshakes

I made a mistake tonight.

Two People Framing an Excursion

Fifty steps down into Whiting Wilderness, I saw a tiny monogamous or perhaps unmarried California Mouse crossing the trail.

Cruel Talk about Pfc. Jessica Lynch

I do not think it is my imagination when I observe women being among the harshest critics of Pfc. Jessica Lynch.

If Christ Drove....

The license plate holder read "Mission Viejo: DIABLOS".

I Walk Past Enron

Oh my God, I thought. Enron in shorts and a t-shirt

Scenes

I'm not fully adept at the moment of ridicule.

Singles

I listened in on the singles group after the writing group tonight. They had a guest speaker who barked up his book which had something to do with men and shoe sizes.

On Eavesdropping

I'm looking for the real voices, the real life that people lead.

Upper Newport Bay 2

A New Stars and Stripes

The banner, which was patterned loosely after the Stars and Stripes, omitted eight of the stripes and many of the stars. The field of blue was equal in depth to the five stripes, alternately red, white, red, white, red from top to bottom.

Writing like Boards
"How's your writing going?" a clerk at Barnes and Noble asked me. "In this heat?" I replied. "It's coming out...

AC Man

When I saw him dragging himself up the stairs, his skin blown dry like the sandstone ridges that jut out of the hillsides around these parts, I offered him a cold Coke.

An Australian

Shane's Australian and I'm sure he talks like all those friends from the brain-shaped continent who I have never met.

A Thought about an Open Mic Reading

It was like being at a Toastmaster convention, watching a virtuoso performance filled with the same trite bits of advice, the same jokes, the usual anecdotes, and everyone laughing on cue.

An Race-Gender Traitor Discusses Michael Moore

After shocking one conservative matron enough to make her get up and leave before the conversation was over (gotta love that open-mindedness!), we talked about whether or not it was the right thing for Michael Moore to "disrupt" the Academy Awards with his little anti-Bush speech.

Authorial Ego

"I inspired you. How thrilling."

Whiting Ranch Wilderness 2003

"I've been telling him about 'the mountain lion'," he winked. "Tell him about the mountain lion."

Astrology

By the way, I'm an Aquarius. Statistics show that most of you who believe in astrology will claim to have had me pegged and to completely understand me now.

Moonwatcher

I met the man who Arthur C. Clarke calls "the most famous unknown actor" in the world.

Standing Up to A Bully

Even when you're a pacifist, sometimes you've got to rise to your feet and confront a guy who is trying to push his way around.

The World Out There

I've encountered worse paranoias and it only cuts a deeper groove for my own.

A Diner Bigot

I raised my voice slightly as I said to Lynn "Don't you just love hatred?"

A Dying Industry

It's death on the cheap, a funeral parlor sans the satin curtains and velvet lined chairs.

Blaz on the USA

American readers should note the comparisons he makes between the United States today and the communism he used to live under.

Slovenia 1991

Wouldn't it be wonderful, we laughed, if all wars were fought by lines of men who just mooned each other?

Travels with Blaz

It's odd to think that I was in Blaz and Boris's country in a time of war and that Blaz is now visiting me here in mine in a time of war.

Gooden Infirmary

The nurse said that she was "really worried about Frances. This morning her appetite was not good. She just wanted to sleep. And when I woke her to take her medicine, she spoke to me in a language I didn't understand."

An Armchair Warmonger and A Market Warrior
I'd taken two steps into Tully's when the voice boomed across the room: "Let's go to war and kick their...

A Visit With Frances

She often swirled silently in a narcotic euphoria, bumped over some stone in the way of her memory, and, when prompted by the right question, flowed rapidly, telling us about her grandchildren and the childhood that she, alone of those present in the yellow-tinted hospital room, had seen.

Broken bones, loose teeth, and a couple of hippy grandchildren

"You know me, Frances," I remarked dryly, looking out the window at the sheer chocolate marbled face of the San Gabriels. "I don't like to see people cut up. Especially people I like."

The Waiting Room

Do they housebreak them? Do these things have engines? Do they neuter them first so they don't spray?

The Humbling of Arrogance

People who aren't monks tend to see them as extremely unselfish and humble. A monk doesn't share their opinion of him. He suspects that he is both selfish and arrogant.

Parallels in the Same Universe

"What's his rush? Or what right does he think he's protecting?"