A Supposedly Fun Thing chronicles DFW’s voyage on a Caribbean cruise liner, on assignment for Harper’s. He describes everything with a clarity and up-close accuracy that is insightful and occasionally vicious, which latter attribute bothered me only a little. The ship, the crew, the food, his fellow passengers, the brochure for the cruise, all are described in ways that link them to the decline of civilization, among other things. He describes trying to get his tube of zinc oxide ointment out of his luggage before it’s been carried to his cabin by the crew, and realizes he has committed a faux pas: NEVER do anything for yourself that the crew is supposed to do for you. By pulling his own bag out of a pile and carrying it to his cabin, he has endangered the job (and, he muses, possibly the life) of the hapless crewman who was supposed to carry the bag.

He obsesses about every detail of his cabin: the vacuum-operated toilet, the infinite fruit basket; the mysterious housekeeper who straightens up the room EVERY SINGLE TIME he leaves it, but can never, ever be seen or caught in the act. He describes meals with his assigned tableful of shipmates in ways that, if they recognized themselves in the book, would scar their psyches forever. He plays ping-pong with the the ship’s hip-hop-crazed tennis pro. He analyzes, and I choose that word deliberately, the underlying proposition of the cruise experience: that you come aboard to be taken care of, pampered, and fussed over, to the point where you start to regress into an infantile state. And this, he believes, is something that many people want badly.

Anyway, you really have to read it for yourself.

I had hoped to meet DFW someday. It wasn’t a specific goal or anything, but the news of his death makes it an impossibility, and that makes it even sadder. I don’t know what could have made him so miserable that he took his own life. He didn’t seem like the type — he seemed to know when to step back from the brink. He will be missed.

Who but Knopfler could make a driving rock anthem, “Boom Like That,” out of Ray Kroc‘s life story? Listen to the historical sweep of “Telegraph Road,” to the voices of the characters in “Why Aye Man,” “Sailing to Philadelphia” (Mason and Dixon), “The Trawlerman’s Song,” and “Brothers in Arms.” Don’t miss Knopfler’s unique take on love songs in “Romeo and Juliet” and “Tunnel of Love.”

He is one of the few rock musicians I genuinely admire. If you’ve never heard his music, I suggest the titles I listed above as good introductions to his work.

My colleagues were amazing. People got me coffee, brought lunch, wheeled me in an office chair, and even brought my car to the door. I am grateful. I am humbled. I am also much, much more aware of the intricacies of handicapped access. You really can’t appreciate the finer points until you are faced with the big door that opens inward, the trip to the men’s room, the frustration at having to plan your way around things you normally do without even thinking.

Also, a pleasant surprise. Some co-workers, passing in the hall as I clumped along, opened up and shared mobility stories of their own. A broken bone here, a troublesome knee there. How hard it is to learn to walk with crutches. Many in this group were people I don’t regularly work with, barely know, and usually just nod at in the halls. All of a sudden, we were chatting like old friends.

So, without getting all sentimental, it’s obvious that people really do want to connect. Is it about the crutches? Do people need to share trauma? Or are the crutches just a convenient entry point to conversation, a door through the social barrier? I don’t think a blog post can can do justice to these questions, but they’ll be on my mind for a while.

How did I get myself into this spot? A lawn sprinkler ambushed me, and I leaped away. Then I tried to leap in an orthogonal direction, away from another sprinkler head. In the process, I partially tore my gastrocnemius muscle.

Go ahead and laugh. The medical staff did, and so did I.