Me In Brief
I was in born in New York City and raised outside of Washington, D.C. in Arlington, Virginia. After graduating from Amherst College with a BA cum laude in English and heavy concentrations in French and philosophy, I served in the Peace Corps in Tunisia. Later I came to New York, where I have lived ever since.
For several years I had sundry "day"jobs—cab driver, dishwasher, ESL teacher, salesman of old clothes and new sneakers— while I wrote and performed rock, reggae and soul songs for my band. Later. I earned an MA and taught English, writing and interdisciplinary studies at various universities.
After over a decade of teaching, I switched professions and became a copywriter and medical writer.
Through my checkered existence writing has been one constant. I have written articles, essays, and commentaries that have appeared in TheVillage Voice, Newsday, The Albuquerque Journal, and Art Speak. My poetry has been printed in Poetry Digest, the Literary Review, Factions, and the Star.
Announcements
It is Fall, 2011. I published my first book, Making Up for Lost Time in February. Meanwhile, my book of poetry, The Lost Poem & Others Like It will be out soon.
The economy is a drag and I am tired of talking and thinking about it, but it's there behind every thought and intention, the suspicion that life is tough and may get tougher.
Do you remember the term "toxic assets" from the sub-prime debacle of 2007-2008? Now it has spread to toxic employment and toxic costs and toxic taxes.
When an economic disaster hits as it did in 2008, it stuns and frightens. It happens swiftly and prompts swift reactions. We experience shock, anxiety, and hope.
And because the event has no precedent, it also has no time frame. We expect it will do damage and blow away like a hurricane.
However, when scarcity sets up shop, and little improves over time, you feel under siege...this is a chronic ill that can only get worse by merely staying the same.
Our species has overachieved. We are well-organized. We have governments and stock markets and clever ways of producing, trading, and conserving resources. Yet, for all of our enormous ingenuity, we are snagged by own complexity and cannot solve the most fundamental problem--how to manage or eliminate scarcity.
Fortunately, I continue to swim. I have to. It is simple enough. And due to shoulder soreness this past summer, I now vary my strokes and swim underwater.
I love to dive to the bottom and breast-stroke a belly scrape away from the concrete floor. I move faster on the bottom. There is no sound.
I go to the pool feeling sick and come out feeling calm, relaxed and strong. I'd say that's good therapy. I don't escape my problems in the water, but after an hour, I don't care about them.