Dear Folks: August 21, 1994
Dear Folks,
Sunday morning, gray sky, gentle breeze, preparing for a rain. Another rain. It’s like a tropical rainforest around here this summer. Inside and outside things droop and sweat and mold. Outside the vegetation is so thick it’s almost overbearing. Squash vines with leaves the size of umbrellas are traveling over the garden, over the lawn, taking over the world. [...]
Dear Folks: June 19, 1994
Dear Folks,
Whew! What can I say?
It’s been quite a week!
The very best part has been the rejoicing of all my friends. The Germans have a word Schadenfreude, which means, if I understand it right, taking joy in the bad luck or suffering of other people. I don’t know whether there’s an opposite — Freudenfreude? — which means taking joy in [...]
Dear Folks: December 26, 1993
Dear Folks,
Day after Christmas. Six in the evening and the outside temperature is already down to zero. The wind is slamming against the west side of the house, and the radio is warning of a wind-chill factor of -50 degrees. I did my evening chores an hour ago, when it was half-dark. I have never done them so fast. The [...]
Dear Folks: September 26, 1993
Dear Folks,
I’m writing with a headache, a bad thing to do, because the world always looks impossible when I view it through a headache.
When I was younger I had terrible migraines once or twice a month. After endometrial cancer and a hysterectomy, they went away almost entirely. But I still get them occasionally — mostly when I give up caffeine, [...]
Dear Folks: August 22, 1993
Dear Folks,
The calm before the storm. I leave on Wednesday for Budapest and the Balaton meeting — always the high point and most exhausting week of my year — a week when I’m with 50 of my closest partners and best friends from around the world and it seems a shame to waste time sleeping — a 50-ring circus of [...]
