Death is swirling around all the time. We do not have to look far to find his ways.

Every other day I’m ready to give up the ghost, to say uncle, to toss in the towel. Then I remember the concept of moving air.

The motif for the book is travel, for which they obviously have the resources, the inclination, the desire.

Still others, bored with my cant, gave up altogether, leaving me to simmer in my own juices. “It’s your life,” they would say, meaning, “Your loss.”

“We like the waterfall,” they must have said, never expecting a house designed to be built on top of the waterfall.

Jeez, this World Cup thing lasts a long time.

On another day someone spotted by red North Beach Grill t-shirt and said, “San Francisco?” Nope. Tybee Island. She wasn’t impressed.

Away from the weeds, the worry, the inventory of things that need doing, we are different people, the world is a different place, the ordinary takes on a different meaning.

You know the kind. The one you leave for the house sitter, the dog sitter, the temporary renter you got off Craigslist for the month.

As much as any other time of year, this week screams of transition and passage. Nowhere is that more evident than at a graduation ceremony.

The cheap ticket to Phoenix from Detroit (forget the return flight) is easy. Finding out about the car is not.

Surrounded by thousands of people and seven tents of music, I reached her but I couldn’t hear a thing. I tried again; got the machine, left a message.