Dear readers: For reasons beyond my control, the shadow men have apparently decided to take Ollie to an undisclosed location, and unfortunately, I am unable to communicate with him now. It seems that they believe that I am becoming too close to the old man, and that perhaps I may take him up on his offer to write a book about him.  That is not in their best interest it seems, so they have taken him away Read More

She has a busy schedule, but always tries to find time for exercise.  That was ingrained in her years ago when she trained as a ballerina. But now, she goes hiking in the mountains when she has time, or she goes swimming or lifts some weights in her home gym, because when she previously went to the public gym, all the male grunters would stop what they were doing to stare, and even “instruct” her on t Read More

The piano ain’t got no wrong notes:  Thelonious Monk Recently, I took care of a patient in his late 50s, who was clearly in a difficult struggle in his life. He was homeless, and was found by emergency personnel behind a trash dumpster —dehydrated, malnourished, in shock, kidney failure and had suffered a remote myocardial infarction. (Heart attack) He ended up on my service as an attending in Read More

The truth is, I don’t go to bars much at all, actually rarely, but now it seems that I’m becoming a frequent visitor at that beach bar where Ollie taught me to “respect the beer.”  Although the cold beer is tasty, there’s nothing special about the bar, except that of course, I learned a lot about Ollie during that short visit earlier.  I suppose I go there hoping from a surprise visit from Read More

Independence Day My flag is flying today, off my back porch, making that flapping sound in the wind, which, for some reason takes my memory back to relive some fond memories.  I think that’s good for my mind to do sometimes—to relive the memories and bathe the neurons once again with past glories, perhaps for the simple reason that it reminds me of where I was then, where I am now, and realizing that t Read More

To my readers: Ollie, otherwise known as The Old Man, who I have recently introduced on two recent blog pieces, has some news that I need to share with you.  Originally, I took on the “Navy Seal” writers challenge by tackling the last writing prompt—You are walking down the beach, and coming towards you in another direction is an old man, wearing a t-shirt that says, “Been there, done that, don Read More

A continuation from The Old Man and the Beach Respect.  That’s a word you don’t hear much anymore, or more specifically, you don’t see practiced or put in action very much. That’s why I couldn’t get old Ollie’s words off my mind: Respect, Carson. They know how to find me now, and when they see me, they show respect–the same respect I show them. Of course, the words that my thirsty hypothalamu Read More

Since No One Else Wanted to Take the Challenge, I took it myself I gave out three scenario challenges on my last blog post, Creative Writing, The Navy Seal Way.  For those of you who didn’t read it, it’s at the end. No one wanted to take the challenge so, I took scenario number three myself.  I wrote it in twenty minutes, The Navy Seal Way.  It took me 30 seconds to create each basic chal Read More

Well, I don’t usually have writer’s block when I put my mind to it, but I do have lulls in creativity I suppose.  This creativity is frequently bulldozed into the grave by overwhelming fatigue by my real job: saving lives and stamping out disease including the Wuhan virus and pestilence.  I saw this ad though, in a writer’s conference program and I thought, damn, that sounds both challenging and si Read More

It was April 10, 2013, and I suddenly found myself close to the grave. They said I had more than an 85% chance of death at that intense, chaotic moment. But my earth angels quickly surrounded me with their glistening wings, swooped me up, and struggled desperately not to let me die.  While this traumatic event happened in the ICU, the cardiac ICU, no less, all things were accomplished by the hospital staf Read More