thisnewday

Today I ordered the last three of the eight Tobias Wolff books that I'm gonna read.

My plan is to read them in chronological order, i.e., the order in which they were published.

They include:

In the Garden of the North American Martyrs (1981), short stories

The Barracks Thief (1984), novella

Back in the World (1985), short stories

This Boy's Life (1989), memoir

In Pharoah's Army (1994), memoir

The Night In Question (1996), short stories

Old School (2003), novel

Our Story Begins (2008), short stories

And now, we wait. In the run-up to my decision on how to approach my renewed engagement with reading, I had read "This Boy's Life" and may read it again as I make my way through this list.

To be honest, I had no recollection of having read the book in the past, even though it was in my bookcase. And I feel like I'm going to want to read it again, in the context provided by these newly-acquired works. Such was my reaction to my recent reading of it. If that makes any sense.

Anyway, that's where I am with this and now just want to know, Amazon, W(here)TF are my books, lol...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
9.11.2026

I found mistakes in what I'd written.

I fixed the ones I found, but wondered if there were more.

It's not as if l'm working on my next "best seller" but, you know, I'd like to get it right.

Because things that we do sometimes live on.

At least that's what we like to think...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.2.2026

Been pondering this for a while. The idea of maybe starting to read again. Which i've always understood as an essential underpinning of a writer's life. Which i've also contemplated resuming.

But WHERE to begin or with WHAT? That's the question that I'd been struggling with.

Then, a few days ago, I began re-reading some of my own journal entries. And I came across two which talked about Tobias Wolff, Tess Gallagher, and Raymond Carver and the crossing of their paths at Syracuse University in the early-to-mid 1980s.

I had previously read Wolff's "This Boy's Life" but, when I recently looked, found nothing else by or about him on my bookshelves. That, despite my assertion, in the aforementioned journal entries, that I had previously read everything which had been published in connection with the three of them.

So, given that and my own preference for memoirs and short stories--which are Wolff's forte, maybe that's where I'll begin my own reset as both a reader and a writer.

So, I'm off to Amazon. Wish me luck...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.28.2026

Some days
I am

my own
worst enemy.

I know,
it's been

too often
said

to claim that label
as my own.

And yet,
here I am

living it
again...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.21.2026

(2) puffs
levalbuterol

@ 5 AM,
BP readings

at 9
or 10,

then coughing,
gasping,

coughing.
Glad, at times,

there are no
others

to witness
or partake

of this
degraded remnant

of a
life...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.17.26

The people
who have owned

and lived in
the house

next door
have sold it

and are leaving.
And, although

I hardly knew them,
except, perhaps,

to say,
"Hello,"

(and not
enough to

say,
"goodbye,")

nonetheless
I feel

their absence
already...

LPK 
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.11.2026

for Michele and Allie

Regardless of what may lie ahead, the mission remains the same: to live better, be better, in whatever time remains...

LPK
Dw/LJ
2.1.2026

May I make
this day

a better one than
yesterday

in each and every
possible way...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
3.18.2025
rev. 8.22.26

So I was editing the previous entry about Tobias Wolff, Raymond Carver and Tess Gallagher and their time at Syracuse University.

In it, I had referenced "Moon Crossing Bridge," Gallagher's amazing volume of love poems and lamentations to her deceased husband Raymond Carver.

It had been a favorite of mine and I was pretty sure that, even in the confusion and emotional chaos of closing up the house on Mooney Avenue and moving here to the city's west side after my wife's passing, I had still managed to keep a paperback copy in one of my bookcases.

Anyway, I was fact-checking something about Gallagher's book online and happened to notice several ads for copies on sale, including a hardbound volume for $100. And I remember thinking that, even though I love the book, I'd never spend a hundred bucks just to own a hardbound copy.

But now I wanted to be sure that my "cheap" paperback copy was still in the house.

So I looked in the tall bookcase by my office door and, after navigating the haphazard filing system I use for my books, I discovered that I had, in fact, not one but two copies!

Not only that, but of them one was hardbound! Upon seeing it, I recalled finding it at a second-hand bookstore on James Street in the old Eastwood neighborhood where my wife and I had lived for over 30 years before she passed away.

I also remembered paying maybe $4-5 at the time and thinking it was a bargain because the book was in mint condition.

(As a side note, it still is. In mint condition.)

But the kicker was that on the cover was an oval-shaped, orange sticker which said "Autographed Copy!" And, sure enough, on the title page, was hastily scrawled, in black ink, "Tess Gallagher 4/30/92."

So maybe there's some magic left in "The 'Cuse" after all.

Maybe it resides in our memory of the lives that we've lived, or in our dreams and aspirations for the days still ahead.

Or maybe/ it's sitting/ on a forgotten shelf/ of a tall bookcase/ just inside/ our office door...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
1.20.2025

There were repair orders--ROs, we used to call them--scattered on the ground, in the bushes, and even a page or two in an overhanging tree.

I stood there, for a moment, just looking at them. Then, I picked one up from the ground near my feet.

I confirmed that it was an automotive repair order, like the ones used in the various shops where I'd worked, in Syracuse and Houston, some fifty years ago.

But the one I'd picked up was only the heavier bottom copy, the one the mechanic took with him, and kept out on the shop floor, while he did the work.

The top copies, the lighter paper ones with carbon paper in between, were missing, having been raggedly torn off instead of along the perforations, as intended.

Walking a few more steps, along the sidewalk fronting the place, I came to what looked like a makeshift desk. On it were a phone, which appeared to be a landline, and next to that, more ROs.

Looking at the one on top, I noticed hand-written notes which I assumed were being taken over the phone before being abruptly cut off in mid-sentence.

Aside from the obvious disarray, it was reminiscent of the outdoor repair shops that I'd been so amazed to see when I first moved to Houston, in the dead of winter, from the frigid northeast.

Now, as I surveyed the scene in front of me, I was suddenly aware of several figures standing near me, men in gray, nondescript uniforms observing me and the chaos around us.

They didn't say anything, but I somehow understood that they wanted to know what I was thinking, what I might be intending to do.

I considered that, for a moment, and then just said, "I think I'm gonna gather up these papers and put them on the desk.

Then maybe put a weight on top of them so that if someone comes back for them, they'll mostly be where they belong."

Beyond that, I thought, there was really nothing else to be done. Because, if it's not your life, you can only do so much.

The gray men said nothing in response, and that's where the dream ended...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
12.30.2024