Ballerino — ME!

A few months ago I rehearsed for and danced in a ballet. My friend’s daughter has been involved in ballet for a long time. For the past few years his wife has asked me if I wanted to be in the ballet as there is a perennial shortage of males for the ballet. I’d vaguely

The Passing of a Childhood Friend

Today I attended the funeral of a neighbor and friend from my childhood. I read his obituary yesterday in the newspaper (which was unusual because I don’t usually read the newspaper, much less the obituary section). The day was the most beautiful, breezy, sunny, puffy-white-clouds-sailing-by day that one could ever wish for. And this person

Wonderful Amsterdam and Paris

Last month I had the good fortune of visiting an old and dear friend in beautiful Amsterdam, Netherlands. I arrived at Schiphol Airport at about 9am local time after getting about two and a half hours of sleep on the plane trip (the Netherlands is about six hours ahead). After passing through customs my friend

Traumatic Masturbatory Syndrome and Pornography = Unsatisfactory Heterosexual Sex Life

A friend of mine recently told me that his sex life had been absolutely horrible over the past year. After a huge spat with his wife last summer over a misunderstanding, their sexual relations had turned cold. During this cold spell, my friend resorted to masturbation and pornography to relieve his sexual urges. Studies have

Exercise and the Mind

I recently read the book ‘Spark – the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain’ by John J. Ratey, MD. The book reaffirmed several things that I’ve known about exercise and many other things that I perhaps suspected about exercise that I could never actually put my finger on. I’ve always been rather religious

Please Fly Me to New Zealand

In early December I visited the gorgeous country of New Zealand. After a 14 hour plane trip from L.A. to Auckland in the most uncomfortable plane seats known to humanity (all other aspects of Air New Zealand were wonderful, however) I arrived in New Zealand. Upon arriving in Auckland, we took a ferry ride across

Always Me

I saw you again today in a different formAnd I realized that it was me You were more beautiful than beforeCloser and warmer and more alive I touched you and held back littleAnd the world opened upTo reveal happiness and laughterAnd hope for goodnessThat goes on and on I was able to see the painAnd

Coincidences or Hints from the Universe?

I just finished reading Deepak Chopra’s ‘Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence’. A close friend of mine has long contended that coincidences are the universe’s way of providing guidance into the direction of your life. I never paid much attention to coincidences and after reading Chopra’s book I realize that I’ve

Who Beautiful Are You?

What is this beautiful placewhere we two can meetunder the most unlikely circumstances? I look forward to running into youever so casually, once in a while,when I think of you and you appear. You are a lazy breeze on a sunny fall day. You are the crunchy leaves dancing in the road in the autumn.

In the Glow of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

Well, who could read Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’ without wanting to read ‘Atlas Shrugged’, right? So here I sit in the glow of having just finished reading Atlas Shrugged. This is a beautiful book that I look forward to reading again and again. As I read the book I thought of myself and my beliefs