Babies: They spit up on your shoulders (and your lap and in your hair); you cheer when they burp, you sing while you change their diapers and make silly faces to make them smile. And what a reward when they do grace you with a smile–or better yet, with a laugh! Yes, I just spent… Continue Reading
Visions of LaDonna
In my elementary school, there was a girl a few years ahead of me named LaDonna. A fearless, redheaded tomboy–always a first-round pick for playground games of softball–she had Lauren Bacall’s bedroom eyes and husky voice.She talked out of the side of her mouth, looking as much like a guy as she could, back when… Continue Reading
Clippings
Here, these are for you! Anyone remember clippings? When friends or relatives saw something in a magazine or the newspaper—an article, a recipe, a letter in Dear Abby—they would cut it out and send it to you, perhaps with a little note attached: “Thought you’d get a kick out of this,” or, “Wouldn’t the kids… Continue Reading
The Pink Dress
Last year, I completed my master’s degree in Creative Nonfiction, and chose to write my thesis about events surrounding the fire that destroyed our home and our neighborhood in 1991. I’ve covered it in previous posts here and in a number of published essays. This is one of the chapters from my thesis-that-I-hope-will-grow-up-to-be-a-book-someday. I’ve written … Continue Reading
Threads Count
With many thanks to It Builds Character for publishing this post about Making Big Decisions based on thread count. I’m always happy to be a guest at IBC, where I receive a very warm welcome. See what I mean: by reading it here. (Complete with kind introduction by the great Chimomwriter herself.)
Stranded…
…on a desert island with only one album to listen to.You have to chose. Go ahead, I’ll wait. This was a class assignment during my last semester at Saint Mary’s: choose the one album you would take with you to a desert island, assuming you could plan ahead for this, and could also figure out… Continue Reading
The Rise and Fall of Ms. Fixit
As I pressed the button to open my garage door yesterday, I paused to notice the black smudges that still form a border on the inside of the door. And this is the story of how they got there. (Seen as a guest post on It Builds Character a few months ago. History buffs will… Continue Reading
A Musical Interlude with Sopranos
This is part of the journal I kept for one of my last classes at St. Mary’s. We were supposed to write about a pair of songs each week, songs that had some special meaning to us. I loved this show…and am saddened at the loss of James Gandolfini. It starts in a tunnel,… Continue Reading
Chopped Liver
As seen in Skirt! Magazine, November 2011 My parents had dragged me to a Bar Mitzvah in San Francisco — the kid was the son of a family friend and I was not given a choice about attending. As a sophisticate of seventeen, I had no interest whatsoever in being there. When the… Continue Reading
America–A musical interlude
During my last semester at Saint Mary’s in 2011, I was lucky enough to take a class with Alex Green. We read and wrote about music, and chose two songs to write about each week–songs that had some personal significance to us. I enjoyed writing these so much, I think I’ll post a few every… Continue Reading