No one asked me to hold up the world.

In my whole life, no one has ever said, “Yo, Fons. Here,” and tossed the world over to me to fit into my handbag or strap onto my back or suck into one cheek, leaving me with the ability to still talk out of one side of my mouth like I’m sucking on a jawbreaker. Nobody has ever done that.

Nobody ever asked you to hold up the world, either.

Curious, then, that so many of us walk around stooped over, crushed under the weight of our respective planets. It’s a cruel, painful pressure. … Read entire post

I had the good fortune to attend a most elegant wine dinner on Wednesday evening.

May I speak of it?

The dinner was held at a restaurant that Michelin — the French tire (!) company whose opinions dictate the very life/death of talented chefs and restauranteurs who work their entire lives for their moment in the sun and whose mascot is the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man — likes well enough to give a [ClipArt] star. Seeing as how Michelin gives stars out about as freely as Mitt Romney gives out compelling reasons to vote for him, this is no small feat.*

I knew only … Read entire post

There’s a poem by Raymond Carver that is popular. It’s as popular as poems can be these days, anyway. It’s called “Late Fragment” and it’s this:

“And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.”

This poem is engraved on Carver’s tombstone and it is also on my friend/brother Jeremiah’s tombstone. Carver died of lung cancer when he was fifty. Jeremiah died of trauma to the head from a motorcycle accident when he was twenty-four. Both of these men died too soon, which is a selfish … Read entire post

Tonight’s post comes via my little sister, Miss Bix. The family received the following email today and it’s a gem.

Schadenfreude shall ensue. Enjoy, fair reader, on this Friday the 13th.

“Famblee,
 
I don’t know if this story will translate, but I have to share it.
 
Last night I got home from scrimmage around 10 and was getting ready for bed. Jack wasn’t home, and I had the dryer going. I took out my contacts and was washing my face, la di da.
 
During my face washing, Jack had come home and decided it would be funny to scare me. So, I’m washing my face … Read entire post