Aunts, Learners, Poems, and Mayo

My cousin writes (brilliantly) about my mother.

Soon, I will write about his mother.

The mothers are, of course, welcome to start their own blogs.

Best book of the year.

Two new poems by me.

(Brief aside where I talk to two basketball franchises as if they were people: Please, Lakers. Do what you have to do. It needs to end. They need to be put away. For the good of the game. And Timberwolves, go ahead and just do it. O.J. Mayo is a good choice. Yes, we need a center and that Lopez twin sure has improved since that game Jason and I went to in '07 but he's not a #3 pick. Plus, I like the Trojan-to-T-Wolf synergistic symmetry.)

(To the guy in the next office playing his Middle Eastern music really loud: I grew up listening to that music. Especially when my parents would take me to gatherings of the NJ Egyptians or when my father was in a nostalgic mood. Although I admire the plaintive blues-like wailing of the female singer and the deep reassuring echoes of the male background singers, it DOES NOT MEAN I ever want to hear this music again.)