NOTE: This is my podcast made the day after the the January 6 2021 attempted insurrection. On the podcast I get the date wrong; I say it’s January 7, 2020. I think that is because, as you can hear, my voice is still hoarse, as I was just three weeks out of my five-week stay in San Donato hospital in Arezzo, Italy after my catastrophic illness. NOTE: This is my podcast made the day...
How to balance our grief about the pandemic with the desire for happiness and normalcy? How to remain whole and vital and strong when the world seems to be falling apart? Where is the line between staying informed and obsessive news-watching? I ponder these things in this week’s podcast. If I were bodily able and living in the States, I think I would feel the need for action: volunteer at a...
October 4, 2020 (the week of his Covid-19 diagnosis, the day before we left for Rome) I’d like to stop thinking about Donald Trump. I thought about him all day yesTERDAY and the day before that and it’s getting kind of ridiculous. I would like to get to the point that I don’t care if he lives or dies. But I keep watching CNN. I would like to stop thinking about what other people say about Donald...
October 11, 2020 The hills north of Rome are green. There is a farmer in a field of sheep squatting over an animal, apart from the herd, lying in the grass. The Tiber river, or Tevere as they call it, snaking slow and low under an ancient stone bridge. The sky that is the blue of Michelangelo. Plowed fields. A house on a hill. The colors of brick and stone and marble. Well-tended vineyard. Old...
October 25, 2020 Oh, gee. I’ve got these notebooks. For 25 years I have been keeping a journal. Since 1995. There were the bleak streetcar years when I rode San Francisco Muni’s N Judah, and then the L-Taraval, across the 7 miles from one side of the peninsula to the other every morning, grabbing the single seat and hunching over my notebook. Through my dark years as a minion at Chevron through...
A short podcast for this Christmas Eve. I continue to heal. My wish for you, as we all endure the shocking tragedy unfolding before us, is that you can find a way to enjoy a little holiday spirit, and remain safe and protected in the days to come.–ct
Hi folks, after five weeks or more of relative silence I wanted to let you know where I am and what’s happening. So I did a short podcast on Buzzsprout. That’s all for now. Be well, hang in there!
Dear Cary, I used to read your Salon column religiously and was sad when it stopped. Frankly I had no idea you were still doing advice via your own website, so I am thrilled to have discovered this! I have a question about apathy. For years it has been my most loyal companion. I have dreams, visions, I have talents – all of which fall short because I simply do not get around to anything. Most...
Dear Reader, Usually I write an advice column and then I make a podcast from it. But this week, what I needed to say was better just spoken. So … I’d ask you kindly to just listen to the podcast … Speaking of which … The Since You Asked podcast is now available on the following platforms that might be favorites of yours: Spotify Stitcher Podcast Addict Podchaser Deezer...
Dear Cary, I was born in San Francisco six decades ago. I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Loma Prieta earthquake and have been close to a couple of street shootings in SF and New York City. I’m not a nervous person by nature but I am full of fear and anxiety now. I couldn’t listen to the first presidential debate because I knew it would upset me too much and, with the...