Musings
Many people keep a web log (or if you prefer the slang, a blog). Although I'm not a very private person, I do not care to make entries for minor daily occurences in my life and then publish them. Not only am I not good at maintaining such a habit, I've never found it very interesting to write in a diary. However, a web log can be whatever style one prefers
With that in mind, my web log entries are usually about things I have been musing. I will experience or encounter something and then begin to consider it, to muse over it. In the past I would share these musings with my friend Richard Stringer, but he died last year after Hurricane Katrina destroyed our home town of New Orleans. I have been frustrated since I've had no one with which to share these musings. So, I decided to do so in a web log. They are primarily for my own benefit, but may be of interest to others. Below are the opening lines of my last ten web log entries. Click on the heading of a particular entry to read its full text.
Enjoyng simple comfort foods when I’m feeling a bit down can be difficult for me in Milan. I look for comfort food when I’m feeling stressed. Unable to get exactly what I need, but something somewhat close to what I can get so easily in the U.S., doesn’t always comfort me but frustrates me more instead. Although life’s getting easier for me, it’s not always easy living in Milan.
posted: april 4, 2010 ; readers: ;
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A burglar is a person who breaks into someone’s home. It’s a perfectly good word, albeit one that may be difficult for some people to say. Perhaps because it’s difficult to pronunce, a substitute word is becoming popular among Americans: home invaders. I heard it for the first time on a television show a few weeks ago and again more recently. While the word home invader may be sufficiently accurate, it bothers me. Is this where the English language is heading? Will English become simpler and less artistic? I find that irritating and depressing.
posted: december 13, 2009 ; readers: 0 ;
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Although it may seem contradictory, I enjoy moving and I have a inordinately strong need for a stable home. Most people dread moving. They hate the disruption. Whereas, I enjoy it immensely. While this first part seems strange to most people, the second part confuses people less: I become very upset when my home is threatened. This seems to be contradictory to my love of moving. A thought occurred to me recently, that reconciles the two attitudes: I'm a settler.
posted: december 7, 2009 ; readers: 0 ;
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Despite being intelligent and self-aware, I sometimes copy the behavior or expressions of others. I don't do this intentionally. I don't observe someone doing something and think that it's an interesting way to act. In fact, some mannerisms that I mimic, I don't particular like. However, I adopt their ways all the same. It's frustrating to me at times.
posted: october 15, 2009 ; readers: 0 ;
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Losing my father when I was a boy was not fully within my comprehension. For years I expected him to return. I feel that way sometimes after a relationship with a woman has ended.
posted: october 27, 2008 ; readers: 0 ;
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I've been struggling over the last few years to achieve a sense of home. Over the last few years I've been accumulating furniture and other household items to give my apartment a feeling of completeness. I think I've finally found a combination that gives me comfort to sleep by.
posted: september 23, 2008 ; readers: 0 ;
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Living in a fifth floor apartment without air-conditioning, with windows open all summer has been trying on me with my fear of heights. Now that summer is ending and cooler days are here, I am able to close the windows—sets of windows so wide that when open one can shove easily a refrigerator through them. I'm now able to sigh in relief and consider the stress of the last few months.
posted: september 14, 2008 ; readers: 0 ;
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Although I was told as a child that I need to share, and although I am very giving, I don't like to share. Now that I'm older and realize this, I have no problem saying that I don't like to share.
posted: august 10, 2008 ; readers: 0 ;
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In comparing a photograph taken of me when I was seven, to the one taken a few weeks ago and has recently been added to the top banner of my web pages, I can see some similarities. For one, although I'm squarely in middle-age, I'm still the same lost boy waiting for someone to come rescue him.
posted: july 16, 2008 ; readers: 0 ;
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Statues are essentially works of art. I feel silly photographing them sometimes because I'm photographing art, an abstract of reality. Instead of photographing a person, I'm photographing a sculpture of a person. I also photograph people, but to photograph art doesn't quite seem like art.
posted: july 8, 2008 ; readers: 0 ;
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Although I have valid reasons for believing that Hillary Clinton is the best candidate for president, I realize that I also have psychological reasons for wanting her to win. I am thrilled that neither she nor Barack Obama will go to the Democratic convention without enough non-super delegate votes to win the nomination. This will give her an opportunity to win it by negotiating, arguing, fighting, and other methods that will show her political strength over Barack Obama—which is one of many factors that I think make her the better candidate. That moment at the convention is something for which I seem to have an emotional need. The source of that need has nothing to do with her or politics, but it seems to be a need that many of her followers share with me.
posted: may 22, 2008 ; readers: 0 ;
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As a current employee of MySQL and having worked in the investment industry for over twelve years in a previous life, I'm able to see the larger picture of the acquisition of MySQL by Sun Microsystems for a billion dollars. My vision is that we've been like a pig on a farm bragging about how fat we're getting. It's only a matter of time before someone eats us. So if bought out, it's better to be the one to decide who will have us.
posted: january 18, 2008 ; readers: 0 ;
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While my mental health is better than most people, I'm not completely alright. No one is, though. Although living alone and in isolation for the last two years has helped to center me, it also seems to have given me the freedom to let various idiosyncrocies to become visible. Operating regularly amongst the living, we learn to hide and surpress our oddities. I've lost this skill.
posted: january 10, 2008 ; readers: 0 ;
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I want to go home,but I don't know where home is. Home is not in New Orleans or is in Milan, at my apartment. Both are home in their ways, but not fully. I feel more at home in my own apartment, but it's not only the physical aspects of a house. It's also a state of being. It's where I feel safe and content. In my personal definition, the definition that I apply to me, it involves a woman, a companion. For me, it seems, home is incomplete without a female companion.
posted: november 22, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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By pushing myself emotionally, continuing to read Graham Greene's novels and writing reviews of them, I have made great progress in my fiction writing. I know I'm flattering myself, but I feel as though I'm become a Graham Greene. I think I can say this because he wasn't an artist: he was just a good writer. Shakespeare was an artist. Greene just did a good job and that's achievable. That's the trail I seem to be following in my personal growth and with my writing skills.
posted: october 30, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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Why is it that we define ourselves in relation to others? Why can't we just be ourselves and still be happy, and still be content? Now that I have become alone again, I feel disconnected. I want to feel normal being me and just me. Is that not possible?
posted: october 27, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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I've stopped fighting it and have let myself slump into misery today. I slid into it, comfortably. I know this state well. I don't like it, but I know it and can deal with it. And I've realized that although I have improved myself greatly in recent years, my new self and ways have cut me off from good dating prospects. I'm probably just pouting, but I'm unwilling to chew on hope. As of today I have plopped into a bean bag of misery and I don't want anything to disturb my disgusted slumber. Just leave me alone, is my mantra at this point. That could change quickly, but I see no hope of it doing so and I like it that way.
posted: october 23, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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I am in an absolute panic of unhappiness. Having split from the girlfriend, I feel myself slipping into a pitt of misery and am scrambling to prevent it. I've been trying to distract myself from it, but the unhappiness cannot be avoided and is necessary. To do otherwise is not only foolish, but will turn me into a person who hides from his feelings, a person who is afraid of the silence. I don't want to be like that.
posted: october 22, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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Recently, I broke from the girlfriend. I cried so much. I didn't feel guilty; I just felt her pain. It’s difficult doing what I feel is right when I know it will hurt others, especially someone I love. Now I am alone again and I’m a jerk.
posted: october 19, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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It seems that I still have mental health problems stemming in part from the hurricane. I still have a feeling of displacement and am very vulnerable. Specifically, I am afraid of losing my home. My home is fairly vague, but I've accepted this much. However, based on an incident in Heidelberg at a hotel two weeks ago, I've realized that I can be easily upset if my home situation, which oddly enough includes a hotel room even, is threatened.
posted: october 11, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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Almost all of the novels that I've read were written by authors who are dead. In college when I majored in English, older classical novels were assigned and I've read more on my own since. Only in the past year have I begun to read more modern works. However, I've not read many contemporary novels, novels involving current settings and circumstances. Now I've begun reviewing newly published novels. This is difficult for me. I don't know how to review them or what I should say about them.
posted: october 6, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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Certainly I enjoy the artistic and performance aspects of a romance: playing the part of a wooer, writing poems, complementing the woman, generally doing special and romantic things to make the romance fun. However, this should not be the relationship. It should be one component of the activities that are performed and not who I am. There have been times when I have carried these methods too far, when they were expected or called for so much that they became the relationship. The relationship became a performance art that I was performing for the woman and possibly by extension for her friends so that she could show off to them, so that they could be jealous.
posted: september 4, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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In thinking about why I'm not yet fluent in Italian after nearly two years of being here, a profound thought occurred to me: Italians speak Italian. That might seem absurdly obvious, but let me point out a couple of things. I've read that culture is “the shared way of life of a group of people.” I lost my community when the hurricane hit New Orleans and I left town afterwards. The culture, the way of life that I shared with that community is lost in a way. I miss it. Now I'm here amidst another community with its own culture, it's own shared way of life. I can either live in isolation like a lost tribe of one and cling to my cultural ways and resist change, or I can share in the Italian culture and join the community around me. I very much resist cultural participation here, I have no obvious interest in it.
posted: august 13, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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I've wondered lately if I am creative or if I merely have a creative sense. This is particularly important to me if I want to make my way as a creative writer. When I say creative sense, I mean that I can sense that which is creative--spot a good artistic idea when I see one--as opposed to coming up with a good artistic idea of my own. And if that's all I have to offer and of which I'm capable, then maybe I should be a literary critic and a professor, and not a writer of fiction. It's a difficult thing to consider about oneself: am I not creative, will I never be a great writer, and am I only good at analyzing and commenting on the writings of others?
posted: july 31, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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When I was a boy, I was shy and a bit timid: maybe because my extended family was a little loud or because my father died when I was three and that made me cower to life. My cousins and others would ridicule me and harrass me so much that I was afraid to provide them with information to use against me. Since I wasn't good at being quiet--a natural talker--I would just lie to protect myself. My step-father came on the scene when I was seven and he was very critical of everything I did, everything I said--especially in public or in front of his friends and relatives. In front of others, he expected me to say the correct thing, the polite thing, always. That meant lying to others. He would jump on me for the smallest infractions and question me about my actions and my attitudes. To protect myself, I lied. He was insecure about his education and his intellect--especially in comparison to me. He knew I was smarter than him by far and he didn't like it. If I would point out that he was wrong in something he said or did, even if I was right, it would make him angry. So I would commit lies of omissions. My mother, to appease him, would tell me that she knew I was right, but that I should just tell him what he wanted to hear so that he wouldn't get upset. She would encourage me to lie. The culmination of all of this, I'm now realizing, is that I was raised to be a liar.
posted: july 23, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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There's a Zen tenet that says, One cannot observe and participate at the same time. I've given this tenet much thought over the past twenty years since I first heard it. I can say much about it and what I learned. However, I'm now starting to apply it to my understanding of writing.
posted: july 18, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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Starting to write a story is not a problem for me--I don't suffer from writer's block, ever. I can always think of something to say and, thereby, to write. When I want to write a story, I usually start with a thought, a profound phrase that sums up a feeling. The phrase helps me to distinguish it. Then I consider how a person, a character might flow from that moment. I come up with just general ideas, bullet points in a vague timeline. When I feel I'm ready, I begin writing.
posted: july 12, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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Furniture and books have become reoccuring images in my dreams related disconcerted feelings in my life. I will happen upon antique furniture pushed together out on a lawn or an open field, with many figurines and other decorations. Or I might find a couple dozen bookcases crowded together out in the open, with books stacked messily on the shelves and the bookcases precariously wobbling on the uneven surface of the ground and grass. My mind seems to associate these items with stability and a sense of home. When I feel my life is being disrupted, I dream of furnishings. In my reality, it seems that my furniture, my books, and my personal possessions are my home. My home is not defined by people anymore and not much by location, but primarily by things, my things. When my things are taken from me or otherwise withheld, I feel distraught.
posted: june 26, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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When the hurricane hit New Orleans about two years ago, my community was dispersed. When I left the U.S. and came to Italy, I lost more connections to my community, to my communities. One community I took with me, though, was that of my co-workers at MySQL. We interact primarily through IRC (Internet Relay Chat)--it's similar to Yahoo Messenger, but for large group chats. Wherever I go in the world, all I need to do is to connect to the internet and start my IRC client program and my work community is there. It's like a portable community of co-workers and friends. It's not the same as an in-person community, but it's a good substitute, especially since I see many of these people at conferences and at other times. It can be quite a comfort to me.
posted: june 4, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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Whenever I go to the United States for a few weeks, when I return to Italy I find that my Italian language skills have received a boost. I think the break gives my brain a chance to sort out internal coding related to each language interpretation....
posted: may 27, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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I've noticed in the stories that I write that there's an innocence about some of my protagonists. They're often playful in their tone; they don't curse or act in an offensive manner. They try not to offend or hurt others in any way. I think that ...
posted: may 7, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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When I first came to Italy, I wasn't sure why I came here. I just knew I needed to be here and to leave the U.S. I've known it for a long time. I was vague as to how long I would stay. Relatives and friends from the U.S. asked me after a coupl...
posted: february 25, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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Most people seem to have a very narrow sense of now and of the world, but they assume it is a complete sense of all of modern time and all of the world. For instance, in the U.S. many Christians are very supportive of prayer in schools. They ass...
posted: february 23, 2007 ; readers: 0 ;
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It's been a year now that I have been trying to learn Italian at the source and fluency still evades me. I continue to improve--although I'm not studying like a student but more like a child learning his first language. Of course, I'm not a chil...
posted: december 1, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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I've never been very good at keeping friends. I have no problem making them, just keeping them for long. The factor which brings me together with new friends is usually the same factor by which I am able to retain them. When that factor is lost...
posted: july 24, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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Well, I declared my novel finished and sent a letter to a New York literary agent along with a copy of the first chapter. If he agrees to be my agent, it's only a matter of time before he'll have it sold and it will be published. Maybe this agen...
posted: july 12, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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When I was a child, I used to be notorious for temper tantrums. No one ever seemed to have understood me during those times or why I had them. Until now, I never gave them much thought. However, I think I now know why I had them. My father die...
posted: may 27, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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In dreams one is sometimes present not only in the character depicted as oneself, but also as other characters. The shift between perspectives occurs rapidly and sometimes exists dually, making it difficult to realize that the person with which o...
posted: may 14, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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As I'm now making tremendous progress in writing my first novel, I'm starting to realize that I now know how to write a novel. When I first started back at college about fifteen years ago, I couldn't see to the end of a few-page essay. I didn't ...
posted: may 12, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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The idea of my novel began based on a humorous moment between my friend Richard Stringer, his wife, and me one night at their home. Richard was asking me about a virus he thought he had on his computer. In response, his wife said that he didn't ...
posted: may 10, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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Over the decades, I have been told that a good romantic match is a person with which one has many things in common. This has always seemed very logical to me and I have looked for women with practical aspects in common with me. However, when I h...
posted: april 29, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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When I was a kid, there was a television comedy show called, Bob Newhart. It named for the comedian and lead actor of the show. Newhart played a psychologist. His wife in the show, Emily (played by Suzanne Pleshette) was a school teacher...
posted: april 2, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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In my despair, owing to loneliness and emotional idleness, I recently ran two advertisements regarding myself. One was in a local print publication for English speaking residents of Milan. The other on a web site made available for posting class...
posted: march 25, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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Lately I have been thinking about someone I knew in high school. He was not a friend. In fact, he positively despised me and would go out of his way to offend me in very cold ways. As an example, once he shook my hand to congratulate me about h...
posted: march 9, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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It seems that wherever I live in the world, I gravitate towards a night schedule. Living in Europe, though, has the advantage of putting me in synch with the waking schedule of friends and business associates in the U.S. So for the first time in...
posted: february 28, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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There's a guy that I work with at MySQL who I aggrivate immensely when we have occasion to interact with each other. It's not often and I try to avoid it. But, he sometimes is so bothered by me that he cannot help engaging me on-line or in perso...
posted: february 26, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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After having lived with one or more plots for so many years, despite my noble obsevation in my last posting on living without a plot, I must admit that it's not easy going without one. I also want to admit...
posted: february 23, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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Much like a bird, I find that I am attracted to color. Over the years, in my house and apartments in which I was allowed to paint the walls colors other than white, I have done so and enjoyed the results. In the living room of my house and my ...
posted: february 20, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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Perhaps it's the plight of being a writer, a reader, and generally a human in a literary conscious world, as well as having lived in the success and goal planning ways of the U.S., but without realizing it I have led my life with always one or mor...
posted: february 17, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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When speaking Italian to Italians who don't speak any English at all, I'm free to experiment, to speak my awful Italian. I'm free to make mistakes and probably sound like I'm drunk. I don't mind sounding foolish all that much. However, if the p...
posted: february 12, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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Learning Italian has been frustrating to me. Not that there's anything particularly difficult about the language, but learning a new language is a chore. People tell me in their attempt at wisdom, that I must learn to think in Italian. That bit ...
posted: february 6, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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Sometimes I wish the Earth wouldn't rotate, I wish the Sun wouldn't rise and set every day. I know that's an impossible wish because of the requirements of gravity to life, but I still grow tired of it. Because each day starts and ends, we're gi...
posted: february 6, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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I came to Italy to finish what I began years ago, perhaps more than ten years ago. What that is, I'm not sure that I can say. That is to say, I'm not sure I can quite articulate it. It's not that I lack the words, necessarily, but that I have n...
posted: february 4, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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Living in Italy, amongst people speaking a language foreign to me and a cultural system which is peculiar as well, living here post Hurricane Katrina, after having my family and friends and community scattered, after having lost or given up all of...
posted: january 15, 2006 ; readers: 0 ;
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As for Milan, I've only been here since the end of October. I took one course in Italian in college a few years ago. While I was in Boston, I met with a tutor, a professor from Harvard who teaches Italian there three times a week for about...
posted: december 14, 2005 ; readers: 0 ;
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One of my best friends, Richard Stringer died today of cancer. My father also died from cancer, but when I was three years old. Although my mother remarried when I was seven, my step father wasn't a sufficient substitute for father. Not that he...
posted: december 5, 2005 ; readers: 0 ;
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In recent months I've been living in Italy, in Milan. I've been here for exactly one month. I've rented an apartment within the old city (the Porta Romana section) and am enjoying it--as well as grinding my teeth constantly in frustration. I'm quickl...
posted: november 20, 2005 ; readers: 0 ;
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I have an amazing follow up story regarding my recent hurricane experiences. Before the storm, my daughter (almost 10 years old) and my former wife left town and ended up in Houston, Texas where they now rent an apartment--they're staying there unti...
posted: october 6, 2005 ; readers: 0 ;
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My cousin (who's also my godfather) has been missing for eleven days now. He stayed for the storm in a neighborhood where the levee broke. The levee broke by his neighborhood during the last big hurricane which hit New Orleans in 1965--he was livin...
posted: september 27, 2005 ; readers: 0 ;
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I fared pretty well compared to others, but I still have a lot of pain I'm working through. The pain is the loss of my childhood neighborhood for one. That has had a poetic and mental effect on me. Also, I'm starting to realize that there's anothe...
posted: september 20, 2005 ; readers: 0 ;
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I stayed for Hurricane Katrina. It was a pretty rough storm, but I survived. My apartment is on the third floor in a suburb of New Orleans, less than two miles from where the levee broke and flooded New Orleans. However, I was on the other side of...
posted: september 1, 2005 ; readers: 0 ;
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