Luggage is My Life

On a day this beautiful...

...staying indoors should be a sin against Allgod.

Working all weekend (and loving it)

Click an image to enlarge and feast upon the gory details. L-r: To get in the mood for developing new workshops, I wear a conference badge. I figure out how many slides I need: 1.3 per minute. I play with imagery: a series of satirical postcards called "Since I know you're so fond of the great outdoors...."

View this in good light

The rubber stamp. Coming to this desk soon.

Ahern Ink: Zeroing in on the most important thing to say since...

...1936, when Dale Carnegie published How to Win Friends and Influence People.

It wasn't until...

...I stared at a burning wood fire, with my foot adjusting a remnant log so it caught more air and flared brighter, that I realized death wasn't termination or cessation ... it was transformation.

I looked upon that log's burning as a victory. The right thing had happened.

The log itself would have said, though: "I died." But "death" was the wrong word to describe what happened next. The right word was transformation.

"Next" for this particular burning log? Ash. Wood ash is unusually useful because it releases micro-nutrients and vigor into depleted soil. And new minds grow off those crops.

When your mortal body dies, you become something else.

Nothing's lost. The universe is a giant hoarder. You will always be part of it.

The ego dies, true. Yet the ego was always the cousin you didn't know how to evict. Don't mourn the ego. Yes, it contributed. But its charm is oversold.

The universe is a giant hoarder. You will always be part of it.

"The best donor is a dead donor."

Heard at a foundation. Said with deep respect.

"At least you didn't suck."

Tough crowd at the Cleveland Foundation.

Where we live and...

...how we display our cards.

Think of this as your living room...

Four times a year, the CT Forum assembles a wowzer, one-of-a-kind panel to discuss some HOT!!! topic. Tonight: Simone and I attended "The World of Sports," featuring controversial syndicated radio talk show host, Colin Cowherd; recently retired Patriot defensive veteran and stroke recovery patient, Tedy Bruschi [far right in photo], wearing 3 Super Bowl rings; Rebecca Lobo, television analyst, author, captain of the legendary UConn women's basketball 1995 national championship team, youngest member of the Gold Medal 1996 U.S. Woman's Olympic Basketball Team, now mother of 4; and William Rhoden [far left], award-winning sports columnist from the New York Times and witness to history. In this photo, area high school kids grill the experts.

My famous accidental career

Mostly I just wanted to find a way to make poetry and a love of pretty, hand-printed books pay so I wouldn't starve.

As a writer for hire, I admit that I deeply underestimated the role of craft in success. And overestimated talent. Talent turned out to be, mostly, applied craft. Plus a few drinks, if conditions warranted.

When I stumbled into the nonprofit world, I was home. This is what I'd wanted since I was a kid: a place where people -- amazing people -- tried to fix things, without caring if they could make a buck.

Let's get it done. Let's make things better. Screw the cynics.

I love Apple. My technological life orbits Apple products & has faithfully since the 1984 "cute" Macintosh; I owned one. I'm listening happily to iTunes right now. But.... Apple does good only accidentally. Not intentionally. Not like NGOs.

They do good with determination. I like being near them.

The money tornados (formerly, masters of the universe) on Wall Street won't matter 20 minutes after their last dollar is spent, either now ... or in the relatively near future, that special period late in life called, "You can't take it with you."

Heal someone. Save someone.

Don't be a waste of potentially worthwhile human capability. Money does the job in charity.