New features!

I have actually started building my Web site! It's accessible now, but there's not much on it. If you'd like to see it, go to www.stickfarm.org

The second new feature is something I've been hoping to do for a long time, and now it's do-able!!! I can link names in the People I Have Knewn sidebar (at left) to a page on my Web site where I elaborate on the people and tell funny stories about them. True stories, I mean, about, say, how I met them, how we interact, adventures we've shared.

So far I've only done two. You'd think the first person I wrote about would be someone really important to me, someone who figured large in my life. Instead, it's a person whom I barely spoke to in high school and whom I've neither seen nor cared one way or the other whether I'd seen since. But I do remember her, if just barely, and I happened to be putting her on the list when it occurred to me to try to link a name to the Web site.

There are people on the list about whom I could write entire books. My plan is to try to write a little about everyone at first, and expand on some as time permits. I'll try to come up with a system of noting which entries have grown.

I would also like to invite you to offer stories if there is anyone you know on this list. You can email me at stickfarmer@verizon.net. I reserve editorial discretion as to what gets posted. Unkindness is strictly prohibited. Happy browsing!

Love in a Time of Pneumonia

I was ordered by my co-workers to write this one down:

Kati kisses me goodnight.

"Oh!" she says in alarm. "I shouldn't have done that!"

"Why not?" I ask.

"I'm afraid you'll catch my cold," she says.

"For heaven's sake, I don't worry about that," I say. "I'm your mom. I'd rather have a kiss goodnight, no matter what."

"You don't care if you catch my germs?" she asks.

"Right," I say.

A couple beats. "Even if I have PANDEMONIA?"

Not quite knowing what she means, I repress my instinct to say, "PANDEMONIA? What's THAT?" Instead I say, "Yes, even if you have pandemonia."

She turns over, pulls the covers up around her, and slowly drifts off to sleep, holding my hand.

Later, I realize the exchange was moot. I've already had pandemonia so many times, I think I'm immune to it.