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Thanksgiving Day, my stepdad and I were graciously taken in by the family of my best friends from my hometown. Dinner guests included a ninety-year-old Croatian lady and her son, a Shakespeare professor, and grandson, lead songwriter for Elf Power, whom, it turns out, was a fifth grader at the school when my stepdad was assistant principal. It was ( Read more... )

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The Phillipines is the largest exporter of registered nurses to foreign countries. The first night in the hospital with Mom, we had Juvy on the night shift. She was pleasant, capable, and easy to understand.

Dad: Juvy. That's an interesting name. Your English is very good. What's your nationality?

(I begin to start cringingJuvy: I’m from the ( Read more... )

I’ve been with my mom at her bedside in the hospital for a week and a half in South Carolina. Amazingly my little small town hospital has wi-fi. It's become my new home. I've learned the rhythms and patterns, the names of the nurses. On the first floor there’s a mini-museum of old-timey medical instruments and various items that have been removed ( Read more... )

I've been a sucker for the renewed interest in Jack Kerouac lately and the fanfare over the fiftieth anniversary of On the Road. I've always been intrigued by that novel and the ambiguous nature of his relationship with Sal Paradise (aka Neal Cassady). Everyone's suddenly reflecting and commenting, including David Brooks, for crying out loud. I ( Read more... )

If Bill Frist can diagnose human consciousness simply by reviewing a few minutes of videotape then I'd like to propose the following:


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Because I would rather do anything than work on my real writing right now, and because brianrdu tagged me, here are seven random/interesting facts about me ( Read more... )

Confession: I was once a math geek. Captain of the high school math team. We traveled to colleges around our small state, competing against other high schools. Word problem battles. Geometry challenges. Algebra jousts. Midway through my senior year, I even found myself attending an informational recruitment session hosted by MIT and seriously ( Read more... )

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