There are many different ways to wake up.  You can’t control them; they just are.

I liked the way I woke today.  Normally, I wouldn’t have liked it because I woke up too early.  When you wake up too early, it often means that you did not get enough sleep.  Who wants to start a new day without enough sleep the night before?

People sleep different amounts of time each night.  I know some people who can survive, and even thrive, on 4 hours of sleep a night or less.  I don’t know how they do this.  It seems not human.  Can I trust these people?  I normally need 8 hours. Continue Reading »

 Are you feeling lucky?  There’s a lottery going on right now and you could run out and buy a ticket.

Do you know that today, there are hundreds of people who are going to visit google or other search engines and type in the following:  “What are the most lucky mega numbers played?“  You might be one of them.

But you might not want to win the lottery today.  This sounds silly I know (who would not delight in winning $3,000,000 today?).  But experts say that “excessive wealth, particularly for people unaccustomed to it, such as lottery winners, can actually cause unhappiness.”  In fact, over 1/3 of lottery winners end up declaring bankruptcy. Continue Reading »

My uncle just came by for a visit.  My uncle is a priest, a Jesuit priest no less.  If you want to get technical, they’re super-priests.

My uncle has like 5 masters degrees.  Jesuits are uber-educated as they have to study for like 13 years before becoming full-fledged Jesuits.  It’s great-you to get to keep going to school well beyond when you’re suppose to stop going to school and get a job.  Your only trade-off for this?  A lifetime vow of poverty and celibacy. Continue Reading »

(Read Contacting Paulo Coelho… to learn the background of this email)

Dear Paulo Coelho,

In The Alchemist, you mention that “…when someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.” Continue Reading »

(click here to read part I of the story)

David knew what that normal life entailed.  He had lived it the past 5 years.  At 28, he thought, if I go back now, that will be it.  I will probably never return.  And he was probably right.

A traveler who returns home from his journeys always wants to travel again.  Perhaps he need not travel to the same physical place, but he will want to travel to recapture the feeling, the spirit, the adventure of meeting new people and having new experiences each day.  He wants to, but he probably won’t. Continue Reading »

 It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.   Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I am seated in South America writing.  Would I be seated here writing Contacting Paulo Coelho were it not for The Alchemist?  Probably, but not certainly. Continue Reading »

“Put some f*@cking clothes on!” I yelled in the locker room at the gym.

“We’re not all gay! I don’t want to look at you naked. You’re hairy and disgusting.”

Such is the life of a straight man in San Francisco. Continue Reading »

My Condition

The word for it  currently escapes me.  (I think that it will come to me within two paragraphs).  But I am semi-it. Continue Reading »

            The day is done and the darkness falls from the wings of night as a feather wafted downward from an eagle in flight.  Yep, it’s true.  Another day ended.  Revelations didn’t present themselves as readily as tabloid tv showcases adulterous activities, but there are always miracles to be found, shooting stars only noticed by those curious enough to look.  Continue Reading »