my careless contagion

My divorce was finalized Feb. 8, 2018, about two months after it was supposed to be finalized, but things always take longer in this town. I recall the day. It was cold, of course. I handed her a packet of papers that said it was all over, but it was over before that. As it was said about F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, we leaned on each other and both fell down.  I probably blamed my ex for too much. She is actually one of the finer people I've known, but with problems that impacted us negatively. I could talk about her good qualities at length, but this blog's purpose was to help me move on. Anyway, people do what they do for good reasons, and regardless of the consequences. It was my fault for accepting the situation and for so long. I should have walked away earlier, but that is easier said than done when you care about someone. I didn't dwell much on her psychology or try to explain why she did what she did, but her past is similar to mine, and those childhood...

Face mites! I have the strangest conversations with my 5-year-old son. One of the latest involved face mites.  I’m not even sure how it happened, but one morning we woke up and (after talking about banana sandwiches) started talking about face mites, which are tiny parasitic arachnids that live on nearly every human being’s face. I told him they eat dead skin (they do not; they eat sebum) and come out at night (which is true). Normally, they hide in our pores, gorging on the oil from our glands. They can live up to two weeks, and the reason they come out at night is to mate. Also, they are very good house guests, leaving no mess in their wake.  I showed my son a photo of a face mite, to which he exclaimed, “Oh, how cute!” At this point, I suggest readers look up photos of face mites themselves (or click here ). They are decidedly not cute. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me, they look like tiny, though harmless, monsters. When a baby comes into the worl...