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Physical Health
Friday
I washed the dishes and the ashtrays and the silverware and the mugs, then rinsed them off and set them on the counter on paper towels to dry.
June 1992Close Calls
Getting mugged in Central Park, doing angel dust, driving into a telephone pole
April 1992The Sky’s The Limit
The same day I get the bad news about my gums, I find out the hole in the ozone layer is worse than anyone thought.
January 1992This Body
My daughters want to know why I’ve started working out at the Y. I want bigger muscles, I tell them. I want to be stronger. They think this is hilarious: a forty-six-year-old man acting like he’s sixteen.
December 1991The Doctor
On Friday evening, December 31, 1982, corresponding to 15 Teveth, 5743, Hyman Lebele Andower rose from his evening meal, sat on the couch to read his evening paper, and felt a sharp, twisting pain in his genitals.
October 1991Finding Out About Your Heart
After twenty-five years in the courtroom, you only have to look at the foreman to know a jury’s mind. The doc’s expression tells you what he has found out about your heart.
March 1991Trying To Quit
Show me someone more ridiculous than a jogger smoking. I can do five miles on the track, but only with cigarettes. Show me someone more dexterous and adroit than a swimmer on her back, floating, sucking on a cigarette like a submarine. If I am conscious, I am smoking.
February 1991The Color Of Light
Through rain and sun and fog, through snows that melted before he was done with them, in winds that screamed at him, the painter stamped and shouted and reached out with his brush to catch the light before it was gone.
February 1991Without Cost Or Obligation
We went past the Allied checkpoint, past the American, the Brit, and the Frenchman, past the sign in more languages than we could read — YOU ARE NOW LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR.
September 1990Sexual Responsibility
Calling a live sex line, making her first time be fireworks, loving yourself
July 1990
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