Finding Grateful
I feel a very unusual sensation — if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude. -Benjamin Disraeli When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. -Willie Nelson According to some of my Facebook friends, November is an unofficial month of gratitude, where each day a participating person is supposed ...
A brief history of racism
Last week, the Associated Press and other news outlets reported that racial attitudes have gotten worse, not better, since the United States elected its first African American president four years ago in 2008. Those who admitted to having anti-African American feelings rose from 48% in 2008 to 51% in 2012. If the researchers included implicit ...
Tumblr – The Three Amigos
I’m posting a link to the recent Tumblr post I wrote for the soon-to-be-released book Dancing at the Shame Prom. The book is a compilation of personal essays by some well-known writers and is coming out on September 11, 2012. I am planning to buy it! (To be clear: I’m not one of the authors ...
It was 15 years ago today
The following reminiscence is brought to you by my upcoming anniversary. I’ve just finished writing a draft of a memoir, including some drama from 1997, and remembering that it was (for me, in the end) a very good year: The artists’ residency is nearing the end. With horses and panoramic views outside my writing studio ...
Brown paper packages bursting with food
I’m at a writers colony in Virginia, all the way across the country from where I live. I literally had to take planes, trains, and automobiles to get here. I knew it would be an odyssey, hot and awkward with my giant purse, computer bag, and 50-pound suitcase (exactly 50 pounds, weirdly enough and unplanned, ...
All Summer in a Day, 2012
The Hipstamatic app on my phone really does nothing to soothe my overdeveloped sense of pathos and tragedy. Neither does that beautiful, damnable song “We Are Young” by the appropriately named band, Fun. I’m going to a writers colony exactly one month from today, something I waited and worked hard to apply for. Several years ...
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowship
Recently I learned that I’d been selected for a fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. I’m thrilled but still in disbelief. But ever since I heard that I would have two weeks this summer to do nothing but write, I’ve been on a writing roll. Amazing what a little encouragement does for ...
Fight Club of One
Last month I learned how to ski in Canada, at the same place where 12 years earlier I learned to snowboard. In those days, at 30, I suspected I was too old to learn how to do something like ski or snowboard. Still, I put on my helmet and hoped no one would guess my ...
Tales of Marriage and Baggage
Last week I was lucky enough to tell a story at The Moth ”Marriage” show in Santa Monica. I’m not someone who moved to Los Angeles to be an actor, although I love my actor and comedian friends and go to as many of their shows as I can. I don’t really want to be ...
Free to be (crazy) you and me
This week I am starting a class and working on a deadline. So far in 2012 I’ve been meeting all my deadlines, but I don’t want to gloat lest I start missing them! Instead of a new post, I am re-posting the following entry from June 3, 2011. Thank you for reading, friends. A New ...
