Where to Live Any More: a short-fiction of the absurd
Last summer, I noticed a curious news item: “At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean … researchers have found lines of holes on the ocean...
Cairn Gardens: a conversation in stone (4/3/23)
Revisiting an earlier post's theme of the joy and meaning we find in 'acquaintance friendships,' or what Ralph Waldo Emerson called "a...
Real (Acting) Patients, for Future Doctors: a way-fun podcast interview
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-17-sp-experiential-learning-leadership/id1613064484?i=1000605108627 Got a half-hour to listen to...
Light on a Tilted Planet: phonetograpalooza 12/3/22
Grateful today, to be past the N-month, when our bits of evening daylight collapse into late-afternoon sunset. My mood collapses along...
The True Muerte: on Romans, Mexicans & Vampires (November 2022)
On a connecting flight to Vallarta in Mexico, late-October, the pilot announced “bumpy patches” ahead. My row-mate in the middle seat...
DREAM HOUSE: of birds, and strangers in line at airport security (8-14-22)
Only a couple of weeks ago, my 2-year-old neighbor started pointing while running around my backyard. “What’s that? What’s that?” Now...
Right-brain? All-brain – Drawing on the whole body itself (6/23/22)
Finding the words to finalize part 3 of a multi-post blog (“Touch, Thrum, Sweat”) I began in January? It’s been a challenge. I am not...
A Small World in Two Days: “sorey-not-sorey” (5/20/22)
My first airplane trips by myself, at age 10, took me from Chicago to Canada and back. Toronto. Hamilton, to be specific, where my...
Conversation, redux: a life of real fakiness in medical education:
https://soundcloud.com/user-499494424/mary-donovan-assistant-dean-georgetown-university-school-of-medicine-in-washington-dc To our class...
(continuing) Of Masks, Myths and Minotaurs: how not to sell your blood, part 2 (5/7/22)
So we walked. An hour in, Patrick veered toward a store-front, to avoid colliding with an older woman dressed in black. She plunged...
Of Masks, Myths and Minotaurs: how not to sell your blood, part 1 (5/1/22)
How to explain our relationship? Is it her tone, or her occasional dementia, that challenges me? Sometimes she can’t find a song she...
In the Archives: an Oral History Interview (Military Medicine Education & Simulation)
23 years ago, I got a phone call from an infectious-disease doctor, Captain Rich Hawkins, US Navy. "I got your name from Graceanne at...
Moving Forward, by Going Back (to school) – 3/6/22
Not to be Captain Obvious here, but I think my classmates can tell I’m older than they are. Old enough to be their mother. Older than...
Touch, Thrum, Sweat: toward life as a dog in a new year– Part 2 of probably 3 (1/23/22)
Any dog will tell you: seeing eyes are not the most critical of sensory input, even if dog-eyes do the seeing for some humans. The nose,...
Touch, Thrum, Sweat: toward life as a dog, in a new year– Part 1 of more than 1 (1/4/22)
As I manage to get older, I’ve been trying to live more like a dog. Dogs have it down, the whole living-in-a-body thing. As a human...
A Tempest in a Terra-cup: impermanence, whirling into a new year (12/21/21)
"The Christmas tree I think got sucked up with the presents," the girl said, in an NPR interview.[1] “Sucked up.” From her living-room,...
Movable Feasts: giving thanks all over and over (11/29/21)
Oh, did I feel sorry for myself that day. An ocean away from closest kin. My first Thanksgiving away. And by choice. A 1980s...
[audio interview] Hope & Good Faith in our Future Doctors
What a joy to speak with Dr. Moyez Jiwa, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Health Design and head of health innovation at the Melbourne...
Post-Partum: an uncharacteristically shorter and even more-picture-based post (11/14/21)
Every year around this time, a classic meme pops up: a nature pic with superimposed quote (by “Unknown”), “The trees are about to show...




















