UNCLE: I feel like I need to write this down -- either to make sense of it, or to purge it, or maybe to memorialize it so that someday we can all take a look at it and see that we lived through it.

June 1: Eileen's parents come to Chicago for a visit.

June 2: Eileen's mom falls and breaks her hip while walking downtown.

June 3: Eileen's mom has hip surgery at Northwestern Hospital.

June 4: Eileen's dad flies home to have a coronary catheterization. Eileen's mom stays here in the hospital.

June 7: Eileen's dad has his cororonary cath in Columbus, OH. They keep him overnight for observation. Eileen's mom moves to the rehab hospital here in Chicago.

June 8: Eileen's dad gets out of the hospital.

June 9: Eileen celebrates her 41st birthday.

June 12: My dad goes to the hospital in Detroit with chest pain and shortness of breath.

June 13: My dad undergoes a coronary cath.

June 14: My dad gets a pacemaker put in.

June 16: My dad passes a cardiac "stress test." My parents, aunt, uncle, cousins come to Chicago to attend a baby shower for my brother and his wife.

June 17: We host the baby shower at our house.

June 18: Eileen's mom is released from the hospital. Eileen accompanies her on a flight home to Columbus. Meanwhile, back in Chicgao, my mom starts running a high fever at my brother's house. It's Father's Day.

June 19: My mom goes to see a doctor, still here in Chicago. They admit her to Northwestern Hospital where she'll stay for three nights, fighting a kidney infection.

June 22: My mom is released, goes home to Michigan, still has fever.

June 24: My son C.J. begins having asthma symptoms during the night.

June 25: C.J. is admitted to Children's Hospital, where he'll spend two nights with his mother.

June 27: C.J. is released from the hospital.

A CROCK INDEED: I've said it from day one: I think the Duke lacrosse scandal is a pile of shit. I think the girl is lying. I think the guys were dealt a colossal injustice because of her lying. I think the university president who suspended the program should be sued. And I think it's a shame that "frat boy" is a pejorative in this day and age (granted, these guys were not in a fraternity, per se), and that being a white athlete at an elite college makes it okay for people to assume that you're a boor, a rapist, a misogynist, a racist, etc. I mean, why else did everyone rush to judgement on these guys?

If you want to be treated with respect, here's an idea: Don't hire yourself out as a stripper and an escort; don't perform "vibrator shows" for couples; don't visit off-campus houses full of drunk guys and take off all your clothes; don't get so drunk that you can't remember anything; don't adopt a stage name of "Precious." Etc.

If you're a bouncer at a bar, don't be surprised if you find yourself embroiled in fisticuffs. And if you're an exotic dancer on a college campus, don't be surprised if a lot of drunk-idiot guys behave inappropriately toward you.

I don't believe in hate crimes, and I don't believe in date rape. There is crime. There is rape. Everything else is politics. If a rape was committed at the lacrosse house -- that is, if a woman was physically forced to perform sex acts -- then I'm all for prosecuting the perpetrators. But thus far the overwhelming preponderance of evidence that has emerged pre-trial seems to suggest that this whole thing is, in the words of our esteemed Supreme Court Justice Thomas, a "modern-day lynching."

WHICHEVER WAY THE WIND POWER BLOWS: And now I read this Roger Ebert piece and I think I better see AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH. But seriously: Is global warming a great hoax, or doomsday? Are there really Republicans out there who'd rather have oil money today and let their grandchildren fry alive tomorrow? That's the part that sounds crazy to me. Are the oil companies truly made up of people for whom greed trumps all? In all my experiences dealing with soft drink marketers and pharma execs and entertainment people, I've yet to meet any of the jackals that are supposedly behind these enterprises. Actually, as I think about it, I've met many former Royal Dutch Shell guys, and they were kind, gentle, intelligent souls. Where...what...is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but? Maybe "err on the side of caution" is the best path...? Color me perplexed. Guess I'll see the movie.

WHAT PASSES FOR AN EPIPHANY IN THIS SMALL ADDLED BRAIN: Here's a link to that HAPPINESS book I mentioned in my previous post. A very simple book, but full of little prizes. One thing that leaped out at me today: The past is gone, the future is not here yet (I'm wildly paraphrasing), and you've never yet met a present you can't deal with. Fearlessness is simply accepting the present, whatever it is.

Or something like that.

Reminds me so much of when I was running long distances. I could never conceive of running a dozen miles. But as long as I just tried to run this step, then that step, the miles just came to me. Sometimes I would feel terrible at the beginning of a run, and I'd think: I'll never make it 10 more miles. But once I gave up on that idea -- 10more miles -- and just tried to run 10 more steps, ten more seconds, ten more feet, etc. -- I always seemed to escape my mental rut. To run 12 miles, you have to have some faith. To live, same thing.

A LONG TIME AGO I USED TO POST MORE THAN ONCE A QUARTER: Global warming may well be a reality -- and based on just looking at the past 30 years, it's fact -- but articles like this make me wonder if all the shrill enviro-name-calling is just more politics, more of the left trying to claim the moral high ground rather than deal with reality. That said, there are clearly knee-jerks on the right who are equally guilty of head-in-the-sand, reactionary posturing. So...

...can't a whole bunch of us agree to be in the middle, trying to figure out what to do about real stuff?

Am reading a book called HAPPINESS right now, written by a Buddhist monk who happens to be the son of a recently departed, terribly influential French philosopher (which is neither here nor there). Anyway, the author relates a tale of a man who, called to summarize the whole of human history for a busy friend (who happens to rule the kingdom), after several tries comes up with: "They suffer."

That we will continue to suffer -- that the nature of man is to persevere, and yet to disintegrate, all at once -- is, to me, beyond dispute. That we are called to find compassion, to offer compassion to blunt the force of that suffering -- is equally apparent. What shape, compassion? What form, this anti-suffering?

Too much hand-wringing!