thisnewday

Another Day, Another Ride

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 01:26:18 GMT

Took another moderately extended bike ride today.

(I've been without the indoor trainer, the past few days, due to the special tire blowing out on my Jamis/Saris setup several days ago.)

By "moderately extended" I mean maybe a mile beyond the 8.33 I'd been doing outdoors as part of my every-other-day routine on the Specialized Roll 3.

So, yeah, a little over 9 miles on the Roll 3 the past couple of days and feeling pretty good about it.

Hope everyone is having a good one as well...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.28.2026

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To Read Again? But What?

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:39:29 GMT

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 to answer.

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 mid-to-late 1980s.

I had previously read Wolff's "This Boy's Life" but, when I 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

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A Writer, Again

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 07:35:44 GMT

Since I've become
a writer, again,

I feel an
urgent need

for a
mini-clipboard

at my
bedside.

Because, you know,
tools, lol...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.27.2026

2:58 AM

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Some Days

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 01:11:03 GMT

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

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Fragments, Revisited

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 11:33:13 GMT

Thinking, this morning, of opening up some of the fragmentary journal entries I've previously kept as private.

(I mention the fragmentary part to explain their incompleteness, the "To be completed" notation in square brackets at the end of each of them.)

Because, reading them now, I realize that they're all that I have left of those places and times, the things that I experienced in them, and that they have value and meaning--at least to me, even as such...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.20.2026

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My Life

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 09:00:33 GMT

(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
fragmenting

remnant
of a life...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.17.26

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Again

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:16:37 GMT

The days
are getting shorter

the darkness
arriving sooner

and fall is
on its way

again...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
8.16.2026

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nonetheless

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 09:11:36 GMT

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

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The Lesson of This America

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 17:23:36 GMT

Where too many
have paid

too high
a price

for the benefit
of too few

And where
proxy wars

enrich the rich
and

further impoverish
the poor...

LPK
Dw/LJ
3.7.2026

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THE MISSION

Sun, 01 Feb 2026 16:18:49 GMT

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

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Ghosts

Sun, 29 Jun 2025 13:16:43 GMT

I came home, this morning, after four days in the hospital. And with me, I'd unknowingly brought a legion of ghosts.

The hospital that I'd chosen to enter, this time, was not the one where my wife had worked, for 33 years before her passing, but the one most highly rated in the region for cardiac care.

It's also a religiously-affiliated one. Which figured not at all in a decision so intimately tied to my chances of survival. It was simply a question of who best performs a critically-needed cardiac procedure among the 4 hospitals within this city.

And yet, for all my practicality/objectivity, i feel them with me: the ghosts of those half-dozen courageous and warmly compassionate Franciscan nuns who opened this hospital, in the midst of this citiy's poverty and need, so many decades ago.

May the spirit of their charitable works and compassionate hearts forever reside in those halls and be carried always in the lives and hearts of those which the institution they founded continues to serve...

LPK
LJ/Dreamwidth
[to be dated as just after my visit to St. Joe's ED.]

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This Day

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 15:49:41 GMT

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

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from date unknown, a fragment found

Thu, 27 Feb 2025 13:35:35 GMT

even so,
i now confess

that i thought twice
just

to be sure
that what i'd said

was really true
so that my words

near this life's end
might somehow soar

before they
disappeared

and might,
in someone else's

mind
and heart,

be felt as
real...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
2.27.2025

[An appropriate find, I guess, for the morning on which my arrhythmias returned. Otherwise, I'm simply devastated.]

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The Lives That We're Living

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 18:35:58 GMT

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

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A Moment in Time

Tue, 14 Jan 2025 18:10:53 GMT

For just a brief moment, the magic was here, up on "The Hill," in "The 'Cuse."

It was 1982 when Tobias Wolff came to teach at Syracuse University and his arrival coincided with the tenures of Raymond Carver and Tess Gallagher.

Wolff had been hired to teach in the creative writing program--then chaired by Gallagher, Carver's SO--and Carver himself was teaching English. And drinking and writing and dying.

Well, he'd stopped drinking by that time. But he was still writing. And dying. Both of which can be slow, painful processes--although obviously in different ways.

Anyway, fast forward a few years, and I'd read all of Wolff's books and all of Carver's. As well as Tess Gallagher's poetry and whatever memoirs and biographies had been written by and about them in the meantime.

By then I'd applied, and failed to gain admission to, the creative writing program which Gallagher had directed and the two men had taught in.

I think Wolff was still there, not having left for an endowed professorship at USC until 1997.

But Gallagher and Carver had long since departed for Port Angeles where Carver died of lung cancer just weeks after marrying Tess.

Like I said, writing is a tough gig. Especially when underpinned by lethal volumes of alcohol and cigarettes. And I can also relate to the poet finding love when it was, by some measures, simply too late.

Although, sadly, for my own life's love, there was no "Moon Crossing Bridge" to be found among the pages I'd written for and about her...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
1.14.2025

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A Life, Not Mine, Scattered

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 14:53:57 GMT

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

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3 Degrees

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 12:52:58 GMT

It's 3 degrees outside and the car is covered with two days worth of ice and snow.

But the plow truck was here, in the pre-dawn hours, so there is that.

Which is good because I have to get out there and drive my grandson to his job as line cook at the restaurant where he has to open this AM.

So, wish me luck and my best to all of you...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
12.22.2024

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First Entry

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 10:53:32 GMT

And my first entry is, "'Brothers in Blues' (2023)--Kirby Warnock," a reminder to order that and another documentary on the life of Stevie Ray Vaughan from Amazon...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
12.18.2024

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This Morning

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 10:22:49 GMT

This morning
at 5 AM,

I decided
to start carrying

a notebook
again...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
12.18.2024

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About the Body

Thu, 05 Dec 2024 15:24:56 GMT

In the late fall,
before I'd ride,

I used to check
for moisture

on the nearby
streets and roads.

For, you know,
my own safety

and the upkeep
of my bike.

Now, there's
ice and snow

where I used to ride
and questions

about the body
which has,

until these
recent days,

carried me
through this life...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
12.5.2024

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DAMMIT!

Wed, 27 Nov 2024 14:19:57 GMT

When I got up this morning and looked outside, the sun was shining and the shoulders of the road were completely dry. It looked to be the start of an absolutely beautiful, late fall day.

How could that possibly be a bad thing, you might rightfully ask? See previous entry.

My road bike is in the shop for end-of-season service and I'm lookin' at a day that would be PERFECT for one of those miraculously-uplifting, late-season rides. And I could definitely use some uplifting right now.

All of which points to an inherent flaw in the negative personality type.

While those of us so endowed may anticipate, and take timely action to mitigate, the effects of an oncoming event, we may also deprive ourselves of some of the unforeseen joys of this life.

Ah well, I is what I is.

Still wishing us all a great day...

LPK
Dreamwidth
11.27.2024

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It's Over

Tue, 26 Nov 2024 12:44:43 GMT

Well, for me, anyway. The 2024 outdoor biking season.Yeah, my last "B" for "Bicycle" entry in my BP Log, where I keep track of this, was made on 11.20.24. After that, they're all "T" for (indoor) "Trainer" entries.

And yesterday I stripped off all of the removable accessories, like lights, horn, trunk bag, and mirror, and carried De Zwaan outside and loaded her into the Subie for the trip into town to the Mello Velo Bike Shop.

There, I checked her in for the "Deluxe Tuneup" which includes an overall inspection, any necessary adjustments, repacking of wheel and bottom bracket bearings, etc.

And then I drove home. And wondered, as I contemplated the empty space where she usually sits in my dining room, if that "B for Bicycle" entry on 11.20.24 might turn out to be my last. For always.

Because, not to be overly dramatic about it, the next appointment I have to schedule is for a cardiac ablation to hopefully control the arrhythmias which, for the past year, have not been fully controlled by medication.

Because, at my age, ya just never know.

Sorry for the downer and really do hope that everyone has a great day...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
11.26.2024

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One Good Thing

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 15:32:14 GMT

One good thing, about riding in low- to mid-40s weather, is that, after 8.58 miles, you've still got ice cubes in your water bottle, lol.

Have a good day, everyone...

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
11.16.2024

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Late Morning, Early Afternoon

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 22:39:27 GMT

Late morning was my cardiology appointment, so I didn't get to do my outdoor fitness ride until early afternoon.

But it was truly worth waiting for--a bit chilly, but bright and clear and not so cold that I had to wear the heavy fleece.

And the ride was, well, just such a joyful thing that it's hard to even describe, hard to explain.

And when I got back, I found my two Donald Fagen books waiting for me.

Whatta day! Hope yours was a great one too!

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
11.15.2024

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Clear and Sunny

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 13:41:09 GMT

It's only 29 degrees outside, but clear and sunny, so I'm gonna ride.

I'll wear the heavy fleece, of course, but wish I could find the balaclava I used to wear when I was a bicycle commuter those years ago.

I AM gonna have to watch for any patches of ice where the water drains down the hilly streets where I ride because those can be deadly. Especially for an old guy, lol.

Anyway, I'll soon be off and wish everyone a great day...

Epilog: I made it, lol.

LPK
Dreamwidth/LJ
11.13.2024

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