Category Archives: Articles

An Injurious Insight

Recovering from a heart attack may teach you that health is wealth, which you should treasure and should stop squandering on cigarettes. Healing a cracked rib might help you appreciate the simpler joys of breathing and coughing and laughing—without recoiling with pain. Surviving a “near-miss” will teach you to appreciate life, to stop taking it for granted as if you are invincible and fated to survive every injury and illness en route to eternal life.

Dogs, Dinosaurs and Lesbians

A gay couple regularly babysat me from when I was a baby until I was a dinosaur. I don’t once remember thinking it weird that they were together; they were just people; I was just a dinosaur. Spending public money and time at school to direct my impressions of them would have been unnecessary. I don’t think I was lacking a lesson at that tender age, teaching me about the birds and the bees and the LGBTs.

Intelligence at Play

Playfighting with kids this age and older, it’s not unusual to take a poke to the eye or kick to the crotch, either by accident or excitement. Playfighting’s complex, requiring intelligence. It is not a words and numbers game; that type of intelligence doesn’t figure. But without words and numbers Isaac was coordinated, unpredictable, aggressive, considerate, even caring—all at once, yet in just the right proportions. I’ve played with kids twice this age with impressive verbal intelligence, but they lack the intelligence to play properly.