LLAP
A few days ago, beloved actor Leonard Nimoy passed away at age 83 after being ill with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The Internet was awash in memories and sadness. I was busy all day but noticed the outpouring on social media. He meant a lot to me, as he did to many science fiction loving […]
More tenderness
I’ve woefully neglected this blog, and I’m beyond feeling bad about it. There are reasons. Among them: 1) I’m writing other things. Okay, I’m not writing that much, but I’m thinking about writing other things. 2) I’m re-building my reading habit, which suffered grave injuries in college and graduate school (all those gigantic, dry as […]
Feet and the maiden
Some years I am so weighted down and distracted by my workaday life that I have a hard time locating some authentic, profound feelings of gratitude around the holidays. This year, the news helped me locate some of these sentiments. Happy Thanksgiving, readers. As I slipped on my shoes and left the house the other […]
Cute little divining rods
An interesting thing has been happening to me when I’m out with my baby. This may have happened with my first two children, but honestly, it’s been over a decade, and I don’t remember. (I didn’t remember until today how tedious and Sisyphean quartering and peeling grapes for a baby is.) I’ve been encountering acquaintances […]
Motherhood, Smotherhood: a hilarious book on the sometimes non-hilarious world of parenting
Motherhood Smotherhood by J.J. Keith My rating: 5 of 5 stars I enjoyed this book immensely and wish it had been around when I had my first child many years ago. It might have saved me from many lost hours I can never get back reading and listening to a lot of judgmental, absolutist BS […]
Supernatural: an intergenerational tale
Recently I found a link to audio from the first storytelling show that I participated in, the Spark Off Rose show from October 2010. The theme was “Supernatural,” and most of us told ghost stories of one kind or another. I read a story from the memoir manuscript I’ve been working on, about the few […]
Annie Hall, 2014
The other night “Annie Hall” was on cable. I’d forgotten in all the Woody Allen pedophilia and incest allegations in the news in the last year that I really loved some of his early movies, including this one from 1977. I’m pretty sure I saw this movie in the mid-1980s in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I […]
Tenderness
Tenderness, where is the Tenderness, where is it I don’t know where I am but I know I don’t like it I open my mouth and out pops something spiteful words are so cheap but they can turn out expensive – Dave Wakeling, “Tenderness” (sung by General Public), 1984 I haven’t written much lately […]
The empty cart
Late January 2014 For the last several months I have been mentally flagellating myself, trying to declutter my garage. My husband, kids, and I moved into this house over three years ago, and the unpacking process was a never-ending Hydra of paper, housewares, and detritus from grad school and earlier. I claimed that I’d finished […]
Finding Grateful, 2013 edition
If you know me in real life or have read my blog at the end of the year in the past, you will know that I am a self-identified holiday hater. I’m not proud of that, but why pretend otherwise? To sum it up, the gradual loathing came about as a result of the […]
