Stories from all categories
6
I spend a lot of time in this household running downstairs to close the door and just breathe. I duck out to coffee houses and get sane again. I spend time among the trees, or ...read more
14
I'm at my parents' place spending some time with my dying father. He is frail as a leaf. This morning two Blue Care nurses turned up, funded by Australians' taxes, and hauled him up the ...read more
29
Caring for Dad is painful. I love him, naturally, and now he's very frail and unwell; so it's wrung from me like dark water out of soaked wood. But Dad tormented me with minor sexual ...read more
9
I spent 36 hours in Bangkok and it seemed to me just like the Jakarta of my childhood, that dense crowded lost world. Our flight was three hours late and I had missed the shared ...read more
64
I'm going into the difficult embrace of family life to say goodbye to my father. Our family relationships have been fraught with miscommunications, outbreaks of insanity, and violence. Now it's all coming to an end ...read more
2
Two Americans in a coffee shop staffed by Australians. This is Berlin where not everybody bothers to learn German. They come in and order and make themselves comfortable. One starts talking about Sylvia Plath. He ...read more
13
My German sweetheart and I argue about my right to make up new words in his language. It's not that he's possessive about the tongue, it's just reflexive conditioning, embedded in even the most free-thinking ...read more
11
You know you're in Germany when you can saunter into a department store carrying your dog on a leash. The dog accompanies you up the escalator, looking longingly across at the fluffy bunnies quivering in ...read more
3
Let’s think about the whole gun control question from another angle for just a moment. Imagine everybody has their own nuclear device. The Constitution enshrines our right to own these nuclear bombs and besides, we ...read more