I’m a physician, piano player, voracious reader, lap swimmer, animal lover, crossword puzzler, movie buff, student of baseball, and a lifelong resident of the Northeast. I drink my coffee with milk and my gin gimlets straight up and ice-cold.
In a commencement address she gave at Vassar College in 2003, Susan Sontag articulated several key elements of my life philosophy:
“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. [Don’t wait] for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. . . . Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. It’s all about taking in as much of what’s out there as you can, and not letting the excuses and the dreariness of some of the obligations you’ll soon be incurring narrow your lives. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.
You’ll notice that I haven’t talked about love. Or about happiness. I’ve talked about becoming — or remaining — the person who can be happy, a lot of the time, without thinking that being happy is what it’s all about. It’s not. It’s about becoming the largest, most inclusive, most responsive person you can be.“
I think–hope!–that my blog reflects this outlook.
augenblick 
I am enjoying your blog very much.
Discovering earlier posts, sometimes I want to respond… but ‘comments are closed’. Is that something you have decided to keep the boundaries crisp and a temporal focus, I wonder?
Undaunted, here is a sample comment:
“Saw and exhibition of Friedrich in London around ’93. The words that surface twenty years later are moving, wintery, melancholic. Intriguing contrast with your ‘hope’ and ‘optimism’*. Look forward to your Casper piece.
PS. *It is possible I was looking at a different artist.”
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Bruce, it’s great to have you following along. No, I hadn’t realized comments were ‘closing’ after such a short time (2 weeks, as it turns out). I’ve made an adjustment to keep them open for a much longer period of time. The blog has never gotten close to generating the ‘cyber-dialogue’ I’d hoped it might when I started it, so I welcome any and all comments you’d like to share. Thank you, again, for your interest!
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Thanks for the quick response. The motivation of inviting dialogue is one that attracted me too. Yet it is clearly not easy to lubricate. Perhaps it is something about 1:1 interchanges in the suffix-zone of ‘Reply’; potentially both exposing and excluding?
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My, my are you active 😀 and after reading about you I suddenly feel very lazy, LOL. Thank you for enjoying my blog and you have gained a follower. Good to see another Noreaster blogging. Have a great day.
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