Not far from the tree

At the news of Heath Ledger's untimely passing a girl in the cubicle next to my daughter began to weep. This went on for a few minutes, until my daughter couldn't take it any more. She went to 'Stephanie's' desk and asked if she was okay. She said that she was, with no signs of stopping her sobbing. Then my baby said, "Were you close?"

She is so her mother's daughter.

Terrifying Truth

"All of these songs are about a paucity of truth. At first they may seem to be about other things, but that is just a reflection of how much dishonesty we have accepted in our daily lives. We are raised from birth to believe things that cannot be proven or that are plainly not true. People will often brag of their honesty, when there is so much they have simply chosen to ignore or leave unexamined.

"The fact is, we are terrified of the truth."

Liner notes from Todd Rundgren's album LIARS

Anxious to hear your responses.

30 years or 30 days

He's nearly 21. She's the 50-year old mother of one of his friends, a girl. She intimates to her daughter that of all her friends, he's the one she'd most like to get to know. . . (No, her name's not Mrs. Robinson). Of course the daughter tells him.

One night late the conversation evolves to sharing stories, the kind of which only come out after midnight. The two of them end up alone, and they talk. Would she really? No, she thinks not. She's so much older than he, and that's only the beginning of the list of why not.

"What's 30 years? It might as well be 30 days, it's only time."

Nearly 10 years later he still thinks about her and he wonders. Words tumbled out of his mouth at the time, confident and brash in their naivete. Was it a great line?

He asks those of us who find him adorable, how we would respond. . . we melt. That's all, we simply melt.