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What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?

When I was a kid, living in Meriden, CT, my next-door neighbor, Gary, was six or eight years older than me. On summer nights, after I’d gone to bed, Gary would sit outside, just below my bedroom window, listening to baseball games on a little transistor radio. He loved to listen to Bob Prince call […]

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Dreaming &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

Dreaming

Author’s Note: In last week’s post, I shared the words of my sister, Lynn, at my mother’s passing. These are my own. My mother passed away on January 19th. In the weeks leading up to her passing, as she wasted away from dementia, unable to eat or drink, I found myself thinking about dreaming. And […]

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The Gift Of Grace &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

The Gift of Grace

Author’s note: While what follows appears in my column, under my byline, I didn’t write it. It was written by my older sister, Lynn. Lynn would tell you she’s not a writer. She’d be wrong. This is the eulogy she delivered at our mother’s funeral on January 26th. I would not have been able to […]

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The Long Arm Of The Lawless &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

The Long Arm of the Lawless

According to an article in The Atlantic, “Sudden Russian Death Syndrome”, rich, influential people around Vladimir Putin and in the greater Russian orbit seem to have developed a nasty habit of getting dead. In case the hyperlink above brings you to a paywall, here’s an excerpt from the article that lists a few of the […]

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Who Needs Gravity? &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

Who Needs Gravity?

We live on East Street in Middletown, Connecticut. On the west side of East Street, there’s a neighborhood, Sylvan Run Village, in which Eddie loves to walk every morning. Through that neighborhood, there’s a stream that flows north. Since I don’t believe in gravity, I don’t find that particularly troubling. But I did want to […]

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Thanks, Given &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

Thanks, Given

In the United States, we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday of this week. Like all other things in the United States, Thanksgiving, too, has become subject to politicization and myth-making. According to Britannica: Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people … Plymouth’s Thanksgiving […]

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The Big One &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

The Big One

In case you missed the memo, kids, we’re in deep kimchi. That’s right. According to this measured and highly objective headline in that paragon of levelheadedness and evenhandedness, The Washington Post, “World has nine years to avert catastrophic warming, study shows.” See what I mean? We’re on the brink of an apocalyptic something or other, […]

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Let The Ball Go Up &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

Let the Ball Go Up

I made a brief reference to a story I’ll recount here in an earlier post. It warrants elaboration here because the subject of planning seems to have crept into many of the conversations I’ve been engaged in of late, including this one with my friend, Jim Vinoski. The notion of planning always troubled me. It […]

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There Are No Bogeymen &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

There Are No Bogeymen

I’ve written about my depression before. But since this is Mental Health Awareness Month — and since every month should be Mental Health Awareness Month — I want to revisit the topic. In that earlier piece, I wrote my depression was characterized by stark, unrelenting terror. It resulted in a kind of hypervigilance, an exaggerated […]

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I’m Not Gonna Lie &Raquo; Notes To Self By Mark Obrien

I’m Not Gonna Lie

As the obsessive language freak I happen to be, I’m always sensitive to new expressions creeping into the vernacular. Most frequently, those expressions are meaningless; that is, they don’t actually express anything of substance. But they’re valuable for what they signal. And they signal four things about the people who use them. Those people: Likely […]

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