Category: Blog

The other day, my father took me out on the boat. I’ve never had much of an itch to be out on the water, but more and more I’ve found myself drawn to it. I find the experience kind of therapeutic, relaxing in an unconscious but very real way. Obviously, you have a different perspective…

Yesterday, I returned home from the Shouldice Clinic after undergoing surgery for my hernia. As always, my beautiful Petal, Rachelle, was there to offer me love, support and encouragement. She helped start my process of recovery by telling me about all the cool and fun things she did when I was gone. For instance, she…

The Shouldice Clinic, where I’ve been having my inguinal hernia repaired, is the province of men. Mostly past middle-aged, we wear slippers and nametags. Feeling more lonely and vulnerable than we would like to admit, we express ourselves in uniquely masculine manners. Cliff reclines in a lounge chair watching a Jays game. He has the…

On Thursday, at 10:30 in the morning, I underwent hernia surgery at the Shouldice clinic. Under the advice of a particularly hearty and vigorous looking patient, I decided to ask for the maximum allotment of drugs, as like him, I had no desire to lie there on the slab, anxiously trying to interpret whatever the…

I was one of those guys who managed to make a lot of teams in high school, but was unable to star on any of them. What this means is I wasn’t a particularly good athlete, but was rather one of those “character” guys. A warm body that hopefully wouldn’t do too much damage if…

Earlier in the day, my dog tried to bite a woman who might have had a slight mental impairment. This woman saw us about twenty yards away, and as soon as she spotted Heidi her face began to melt from happiness. She was dressed all in purple, and had a collection of accessories that suggested…

Last week I wrote to professional baseball players Lance Berkman and David Ortiz in order to motivate them, as their underachieving performances were having an adverse effect on my fantasy baseball team, A Fury of Pigeons. I wrote Lance Berkman under the guise of Timmy, a sick eight year-old boy, and I wrote David Ortiz…

Down the street, workmen sat on the grass, mostly in the shade, breathing easy after lunch. Cross-legged, they occupied the sidewalk and lawn like protesters. The expressions on their faces suggested that they did not want to be made to feel like they should shuffle over and free up the sidewalk, and they immediately softened…

On the weekend, we visited the Albright-Knox gallery in Amherst, a suburb of Buffalo. It’s reputed to have one of the finest collections of Modern Art in the world, and I was pretty keen on seeing it. You see, I’d taken a course on Modern Art back in university, and having attended nearly 15% of…