Places, and why we miss them

Anyone who's actually reading this may already know that we're expecting our second child. A boy. He's due at the end of October, but if he's anything like his sister, he'll come at the beginning of October. He'll be born here, in Phoenix.

The Curse of Coolness

It's been nearly a year since my last post. Thank god no one's actually reading this, or there'd be some disappointment going around. I promised stories from suicide row in my last post, and I'll get to that later on, along with the various comings and goings of life in general, and what's been happening these last eleven months. Big news: kid number two on the way! But that's also for another post.

What I want to talk about today is the problem of being cool. I was never cool in the sense that I was popular, or sought after, or a trend-setter. But I have, for a long time, tried to cultivate coolness. Ironic detachment. The ability to remain unruffled, and unmoved. And I'm realizing how much I missed in the process. How much we all miss, because our culture pushes cool to the point that I believe its hobbling the whole society.

I'll tell you what brings this up. In the last couple of months I've become a fan of Roger Ebert's website, especially his Great Movie essays, which are a biweekly feature. You can get the complete list here . Anyway, tonight I read his essay on Franco Zeferelli's Romeo & Juliet and thought "I bet Netflix has that available for streaming". Sure enough, they do.