Category: Seven Minute Read

  • An Intimate Look Into Our Life: The Style of Our Book Shelf

    An Intimate Look Into Our Life: The Style of Our Book Shelf

    Books and the shelves that hold them have always been an integral part of my life—from early childhood until now I’ve always had bookshelves. About twenty years ago, I began styling them to reflect not only my reading habits but the intimacies of my personal life.  It is a perplexing cause of vexation that on…

  • A Portrait of The Artist as a Grown Man (Video and Text)

    This post includes the video and text version, the art displayed on the easel in the video, and an exclusive 48-second look at my new atelier at Montecinos in Barcelona. Enjoy. Please click to SUBSCRIBE. A Portrait of The Artist As A Grown Man  (A Stream of Consciousness with Apologies to James Joyce) I did…

  • Life in Spain: Two-Month Update

    The moment I walked out of the Barcelona El Prat airport in December I felt a stimulating sense of belonging, it seemed to defy the angst of my life in fragmented America—a country I no longer recognize or feel comfortable in.  There seems always to be an inner breeze of excitement, joyful gratitude for Barcelona…

  • The Search for an Equal Companion

    The Search for an Equal Companion

    9/21/2023 Eighteen years ago, in 2005, I sat down with my wife of twenty-six years in our dream home on Main Street in the utopian town of Franklin, Tennessee. I will never forget it: the classy Lane recliners, the marble fireplace, the horrendously expensive Oriental rug, the aroma of Spring flowers coming through the open…

  • Think Getting Older Sucks? Think Again.

    Hollywood, culture, and yes, even the medical industry tells us that getting older sucks and that people over fifty should slow down and act their age. Guess what? We are not listening. Instead, many of us are living out our dreams. A growing number of older people are showing there is much to enjoy in…

  • Why Does God (and His Followers) Hate My Penis?

    If one believes the creation myth, the ideal Adam and Eve were created nude. Then God proclaimed, “It was good…except for Adam’s penis.” Nope. The story did not include a disclaimer. It seems that God was quite pleased with his handiwork. Ahem. I’m sure Adam had an uncircumcised tool that John Holmes would have envied….

  • The Joy of Books (For Serious Readers Only)

    Some people eat to live while others live to eat—books are both for me. I read to live and I live to read. My confession: I am a hopeless bibliophile who could possibly be enjoying the initial symptoms of bibliomania. Recently, I came across a fascinating list of books on stacker.com “100 of the Best…

  • In Praise Of Free Time

    What could be more delicious than to wake up without the incessant intrusiveness of an alarm? These instruments from hell make one’s skin crawl, like nails on a chalkboard. And what could be more decadent than finishing a dream and waking up naturally, flushed from a sexual tryst on a beach in the French Riviera…

  • From Fundamentalism to Freedom

    It is still a shock to my system when I encounter a person who is fundamentalist or evangelical. The experience is much like a friend of mine who served in Vietnam when he would have a flashback. Psychologist Marlene Winell has coined a term for the devastating effects on those of us who have left…