Worst Birthday Ever (Dedicated to my under-30 friends)The day I turned 25 was a drizzly bleak Tuesday in San Antonio, not cold but biting in the way that only Sunbelt cities can be in the grip of below-normal temperatures. I worked the 3-midnight police shift and Tuesday was my Friday. The first call of the day was a fatal fire on the West Side; two children had been killed. The fire was long over by the time I visited the site, but a sweetish smell hung in the air. At the time, I thought the odor Read more [...]

I have no bedside table. It's a design thing, part of an effort to keep the bedroom very spare. But I recently decided to "build" a bedside table by taking a stack of books, books I don't intend to read anytime soon, and building them into a tower just high enough and broad enough to hold my small alarm clock. And if I were a smart person, such as Keith, I would include a photograph here.I provide this detail because it's obvious that someone who has a fake TBR pile must have a pretty formidable Read more [...]

The descent was bumpy. "Why is it so bumpy," murmured the woman in the window seat, "when the trees below us aren't moving?" It was bumpy enough to make me feel nauseous and I clutched my arm rests, even checked for the folded bag that has been part of airline travel throughout my lifetime. I've never used one, but it's nice to know they're still there. It had been an uneventful trip from Tampa, the plane relatively empty, so passengers had plenty of personal space, with middle seats largely left Read more [...]

No, I have no idea what it means. But I've been saving the more creative spam subject headers for a while now. And I've decided that this one is as good an excuse as any to ask people what they celebrate and how. How, in effect, do you in change the ambassadorial? Years ago, I started buying myself little gifts when I finished a book, usually a pair of earrings. Nothing expensive or elaborate; I just wanted to mark the occasion. But in 2025, while in Boulder, Colorado with one of the best media escorts Read more [...]

The Indianapolis Colts lost yesterday and a lot of people in Baltimore are happy. Okay, I can't say a lot with any authority. I am happy. The four people who were having breakfast next to me this morning were happy, and I believe they will do the right thing and teach their baby girl to be happy, too, when she can understand such things.The Baltimore Colts left town on a snowy night, spirited away by Mayflower moving vans. There are people in Baltimore to this day who won't use Mayflower. Okay, some Read more [...]

Okay, I'm cheating, the "M" stands for meme, but I just found this on Tribe's blog. 1) I'm not superstitious, but I act as if I am. I don't walk under ladders (but, really, it's unsafe) and I hate the no. 13. You'll notice that if comments here stall at 13, I'll usually post again, just to get the number going. That said, I sneer at cities that have no 13th floors listed in their elevators, just jump to 14. Baltimore acknowledges the existence of 13th floors. 2) I re-read children's books, particulary Read more [...]

For newbies here, TRP (The Reading Project) refers to an off-shoot of TMP (The Memory Project). Inspired by the reading habits of the Nolan family in A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, I decided to read a little Shakespeare and the Bible every day. Two weeks into the New Year, it’s already evident that my life won’t accommodate any daily, seven-day-a-week ritual other than moisturizing. So instead of reading one page of S & B daily, I try to read Shakespeare at the rate of one scene per sitting and Read more [...]

Long before Tracey Ullman told Calista Flockhart that everyone has a theme song, I had contemplated mine. I was 13, on a cross-country trip with my mother, and she had just bought me a wonderfully up-to-the-minute dress (to my Baltimore eyes) at Blum’s in San Francisco. I felt like the star of my own sitcom and, no, I won’t tell you the song that played in my head as I walked down the streets of San Francisco. It’s way too embarrassing. Over the years, I’ve tried on other theme songs, mostly Read more [...]

Permit a former journalist to tell a few war stories. Imagine me draped over a bar, if you like, at one of the journalist watering holes I've known over the years -- Pat's Idle Hour, Mel's, the Brass Elephant, the CVP in Towson. The first story harkens back to when I was an in-way-over-my-head political reporter for the San Antonio Light, sent to the border to write some sort of news feature on Lloyd Bentsen, the local "boy" who was Dukakis's running mate. Being me (perverse), I ended up writing Read more [...]