It seems like Texas has been living inside a series of movie titles. Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, shifted to Don’t Drink the Water, and moved on to Once Upon a Time in Mexico. This week, Governor Greg Abbott took it to a whole new level when he lifted COVID-19 restrictions on businesses and rescinded a statewide […]
After beginning to think I had been lost in the shuffle, I received an email from UT Southwestern Medical Center “inviting” me to enroll in MyChart, which I did with fingers flying on the keyboard like I was still competing in a typing contest. I was hoping against hope that this would get me the ticket to that first vaccine […]
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” So Socrates supposedly said at his trial for impiety and corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, crimes for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. Now I don’t know about all that, but I do know a thing or two about pondering one’s life and the vast network of relationships […]
Mother and Daddy were friends with a couple when I was growing up that I’ll call Vern and Fran. Vern was one of those tall and tanned East Texas men who looked like he could go bear hunting with a switch. Fran, who was petite enough to fit her shoulder under his arm, had a pixie cut hair style that […]
We had the official Groundhog Day this week, with all the attendant prognosticating about the weather that comes with it, as if Punxsutawney Phil were the Al Roker of the subterranean rodent world. He returned to his burrow, indicating six more weeks of winter, as if that matters to those of us who have been living in Bill Murray’s Groundhog […]
Policy. Politics. Process. Power. If governance in the United States were a card game, these would be the suits. In the second week of an administration in which the Democrats hold the White House and both Congressional houses (by slim margins), we can see how these four suits get played by both parties in their ongoing struggle. Rest assured that […]
In Sunset Boulevard when Joe Gillis says to her that he didn’t know she was planning a comeback, Norma Desmond shoots back, “I hate that word. It’s a return, a return to the millions of people who have never forgiven me for deserting the screen.” Gloria Swanson owns that classic line, but it could just as easily been delivered by […]
Having spent so much time this week trying to track down some COVID vaccine, I have managed to sign up for waiting lists for practically any place within driving distance that is rumored to be in line to get some of the magic elixir. This is hard for me to do, being white. White people hate to wait in line […]
It was a Saturday night in December more years ago than I care to admit that I was meeting a large group of friends at a little dive place called Mamma Mia’s for cheap Italian food and a good deal of correspondingly cheap wine. My college days were coming to an end, and I’m not sure now whether the gathering […]
If this were a totally rational world, we would have collectively packed off all beliefs in superstitions and omens to some kind of metaphorical landfill. That said, 2020 has provided proof positive that we’re not living in a rational world, so I feel justified in hanging on to the ones that were taught at my mother’s knee. Mother was a […]
