Prose that hasn’t been published elsewhere
Yesterday I swam around Aquatic Park on a sunny, windy afternoon with shreds of fog whipping themselves away from the Golden Gate and across the blue sky.
The wind on the cove gave different textures to water in every part of the cove: Just off the dock and along the buoy line I was swimming into the chop, punching through each wave and gliding just beneath the jade-green roughness of the surface.… Read the rest
I swam for an hour and 25 minutes on Saturday, with my swimming buddy Zina, and it was good. The sun was shining, the water was calm, there were no currents to speak of, and we explored a new-to-us route that took us from the far end of the breakwater guarding Fisherman’s wharf to the far end of the Fort Mason complex and back, for a total distance of about two miles.… Read the rest
I wore my swirly purple Speedo for a two-hour swim in the Bay on Saturday.
It was the morning of a joint Pride celebration with my club, the South End, and the Dolphin Club next door. Fifty or sixty of us were going to swim from a bayside beach about a mile away, back to the beach between our two clubs, where rainbow flags had been strung over the water between the docks.… Read the rest
If we learned anything from former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony this week, it’s the importance of well-written memos.
Comey’s memo to the Senate, spelling out his introductory statement, is clear, crisp, and to the point. It contains a wealth of precise detail that lends credibility to his report.… Read the rest
I’m going to attempt to swim down SF Bay, from the Golden Gate Bridge to AT&T Park, on July 9.
The distance is about 6.5 miles. The water temperature will probably be about 59 degrees Fahrenheit (plus or minus a couple degrees), or about 15C.… Read the rest
Like many Americans, I’m angry and disappointed about Trump’s repudiation of the Paris Agreement.
What are we going to do about it? This is a small contribution, but I’m going to swim 6.5 miles in the SF Bay to raise money for the environment.… Read the rest
I read that Annie Dillard, when composing Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, was living in the suburbs and raising a family. Strange, at first, to think that one could compose such solitude in the midst of bland civilization. Or dive that deep into nature among the streets and cul-de-sacs of a small town and all its busy-ness.… Read the rest
One of today’s top recommended stories in my Medium feed is a piece intriguingly titled “How I Got My Attention Back.”
I clicked through, only to see that Medium estimated it as a 14-minute read. Fourteen minutes! You expect me to spend more than half a pomodoro of my precious attention on a wandering first-person narrative about your monthlong off-grid retreat?… Read the rest
As a society, we are facing a crisis of understanding.
Fake news is just the latest expression of a deeper problem: We have more and more difficulty thinking about (and talking about) complex topics.
In short, it’s hard to convey nuance and multiplicity with the media we have today.… Read the rest
This year I took the kids shopping with me on Christmas Eve. I gave them $60 each: A twenty to buy a present for their mom, a twenty to buy a present for their sibling, and a twenty to buy some stocking stuffers for the other three members of the family.… Read the rest