"the bacon overload could go the way of pirates, ninjas, robots, monkeys and zombies" - Peter Ryan

I expect that along with millions of ex-vegetarians, I came to be undone by the unbearably insidious temptation that is bacon. As I recall, I ended four years of no-meatedness at…

The Statement

April 24, 1967, and the 1960s (as they exist in popular imagination) were at full flower. The Haight hadn't become a slum yet. January had seen the Human Be-In. Summer would be christened the Summer of Love and autumn would see the Exorcism of the Pentagon. Student numbers swelled as baby boomers hoped to wait out the war in Vietnam (which Dr. King had only just denounced) on college campuses. Just that…

In her dream she was
past thin, impoverished
shivering at room temperature in a thin shirt

She sat in a rocking chair, looking out a window
watching the snow soften her view:
A brick apartment building,
a rusting fire escape

She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror
Cobalt eyes set against pale skin
…

In my residency for Family Practice some patients stand out in my memory. They are the ones that I struggled with: what was the right thing to do?

A woman in her 60s was admitted to the service. She was very disabled by a long-standing disease call scleroderma. She lived in a group home for disabled elders. I had never met her before.

She was admitted for a DVT, a deep venous thrombosis. This is a blood clot in the deep veins of one's legs, though it can occasionally be in the arms.…