My Brief Adventure with Sleep Apnea Twelve Weeks of Medicine, Placebos, and Salesmanship One morning my wife told me that during the previous night she had gotten out of bed to get a drink of water …

Novelists Anonymous I have fallen off the wagon again. I will just come out and say it. “I wrote another novel.” I thought I was done with it, that I’d sworn off forever, that taking it one day …

Novelists Anonymous I have fallen off the wagon again. I will just come out and say it. “I wrote another novel.” I thought I was done with it, that I’d sworn off forever, that taking it one day …

My Wife is Disappearing GLP-1 has changed everything When it comes to weight, I am a pogo stick kind of guy: up and down. I decide that I really want to become an expert at sourdough bread, bake a …

It’s Always the Writing That Fails Why narrative dies. Noir Detective Series I like to stream noir detective series. Many of the best ones come from Scandinavia, and I subscribe to the streaming …

It’s Always the Writing That Fails Why narrative dies. Noir Detective Series I like to stream noir detective series. Many of the best ones come from Scandinavia, and I subscribe to the streaming …

My Continuing Quest to Create a Social Support System for Retired Men An update at the start of Year Three In the spring of 2024, I set out to solve the problem of retired men growing old without a …

Accomplices Assist Old Man in Daring Escape from Costa Rica’s Manuel Antonio Park When shade and a park bench are not enough I live in a suburb of Portland, Oregon. When I leave the suburbs and …

Eating Sushi in Mexico The culinary lies I tell myself My wife and I live in Portland, Oregon. It rains once a year in Portland. That once-a-year rain lasts from mid-November until the first of …

Gritty from a Safe Distance At a Lucinda Williams show, we confronted the reality of aging — hers and ours. I saw on my phone that Lucinda Williams was coming to town, and believing that most other …

It’s Time We Talked About Your Cable Subscription I was paying for service I didn’t need out of habit. Here’s how I stopped. I’m old, and I live in a neighborhood filled with old people. I …

Tidying Up the Detritus of a Career Reflections on Identity After Law People used to approach me at social events and ask, “Are you an elder-law lawyer?” Usually they wanted free legal advice …

The Death of Bob Musings on a dog, dogs, and getting old. Bob, our dog, died on August 28, 2025. He was 17 years old. Bob had been declining for a long time. He was blind. He was deaf. He couldn’t …

Retiring My Hedge Trimmer: Pride, Aging and Paying for Help Another milestone in aging This morning, there are young men outside my home blowing leaves and trimming shrubbery. For decades, that has …

I attended third grade in a small town in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The town was called Spearfish, which I considered a very fine name. From our house, we could see Lookout Mountain, a tall…

Every family, every social group and every neighborhood across our planet has one. Or maybe more than one. The know-it-all. These frustrating but ultimately lovable creatures prowl our communities…

I had a bothersome lump on my abdomen. I described my symptoms to Claude, my AI doctor, who suggested that I might have an inguinal hernia. He told me to contact my human doctor. I then asked Claude…

I like structure in my recreational reading. When I retired, it became mandatory for me to read biographies of the American presidents, and I read them in order. One pleasure of doing it that way was…

I have never had my own doctor. A doctor I could call or see on a regular basis. One who remembers me from one visit to the next. One for whom I am more than a stop on his or her rush from one…

In spring of 2024, I summoned all my old-guy courage and started a twice monthly lunch on my back deck for the retired men I know. It was my one-man effort to break through barriers that so often…