Author Archives: pfannkuchea

For most of the week after flying back home, I’ve felt achy and weak. Naturally, I saw this as a portent of pain to come. And maybe it is. But at the moment, I rather think that it’s being under the weather. I’m hoping that tomorrow things will brighten up. Tomorrow I’ll meet Jim andContinue reading “ALS Diary (part twenty-two): Kick-Starting my Social Life Back in the USA”

Yes, I have lost ground. I knew that I was losing ground in Paris and I expected to lose ground even before I left for Paris. I expected it to be worse in fact. Nonetheless, while in Paris I blamed my losses on the sloping uneven streets and on missing my exercise routine at theContinue reading “ALS Diary (part twenty-one): At home again, I’ve lost ground”

Now, after the warmest and most helpful send off I could have asked for, I’m waiting for an hour at my CDG departure gate. The sky was a perfect blue on the way here and the air had a pleasantly cool freshness. I’m noticing my compulsion (which is a characteristic tendency of literature professors) toContinue reading “ALS Diary (part twenty): Waiting for my Flight at CDG, in Flight, Home, and why this ALS Diary was so Problematic”

I began writing the last blog entry the day before yesterday, continued writing the rest of it yesterday, had visitors all day today (delightful but exhausting) and will be packing and saying goodbye tomorrow at lunch, and then on my way home the day after tomorrow. When nothing happens, I don’t know what to write.Continue reading “ALS Diary (part nineteen): Wrapping it up; Last Thoughts in Paris”

Recently I could tell that my condition was getting worse. It was harder to maintain my balance, harder to get up the stairs, harder to go to sleep at night. However, my part of our project is as good as done, and Didier had only ten pages to go. In five days, I’ll be inContinue reading “ALS Diary (part eighteen): My condition is Worsening; the Home stretch”

There are rules of courtesy that have nothing to do with the use of tableware: anyone who happens to hold a position of dominance (for whatever reason) should see to it that the (for whatever reason) disadvantaged get their turn. Do that, and do it even for the homely self-conscious kid on the sidelines. ShowContinue reading “ALS Diary (part seventeen): What is the Role of Compassion in Oppositional Politics?”

On Wednesday, Pancake is still in Luxembourg. Serge and Pierrette come for lunch bringing everything with them. I am impressed and pleased by the simplicity of their typical meal, an unvarnished puréed cod dish, baguette, cheese eaten with bread and with simple leaves of lettuce unsalted and fresh strawberries unsweetened. We talk for quite aContinue reading “ALS Diary (part sixteen): A Conversation and an Exhausting Walk to the Montmartre Cemetery and Back; Thoughts about Compassion”

Pancake is back in Luxembourg to defend his M.A. thesis. I don’t mind a bit of solitude but my mobility outside the apartment is limited. I don’t fancy the prospect of a broken hip or leg. I’m noticing that it’s harder to maintain my balance or climb the curving narrow staircase that leads up toContinue reading “ALS Diary (part fifteen): Walking Is Getting Harder; Solitude and Memories of my Children”

Last night, the balance tipped from sweetness to bitterness and I had a bad night. There are rules I have to follow. My only way out is into the past. So speak, memory! Pancake has begun to remind me of my erstwhile close friend and comrade in the antiwar movement, Gregg Gauger. Same long hair.Continue reading “ALS Diary (part fourteen): Memories of Comradeship, a Night of Desolation”

It’s a beautiful mild and sunny Saturday. Serge and Pierrette came for lunch, bringing an unlabeled bottle of red wine from her home in Gruissan. It had the taste of simple friendship and hospitality that I associate with Narbonne, which is next door to Gruissan. When I first found out where she is from IContinue reading “ALS Diary (part thirteen): A Splendid Day with Friends and Memories”