Category: The Old Days

The Wall

This heat has No name at all until You remind yourself He. Is. There. Exit the climate-controlled Iceblock Bedroom Only to hit The Wall. Day 11, A River of Stones

A Friend of Mine

Out of the blue, I got a call/voice mail from T. Mallie the other day. It was one of those lovely long rambling messages in which she updated me on her job status and her life and her hairstyle and the general feelings of things on the Other Coast. Last time I laid eyes on…

Becoming Absorbent

I haven’t been posting as frequently lately. I don’t consider this writer’s block, though I once did. This is because I have been thinking. A Little Story Once I sign up for a pottery class. My friend, Rita, forced me. She berated me until I went. Fine, I said. I am not writing anyway. Might…

My Favorite… Poem

Want to torture me? Ask me who my favorite AUTHOR is. Or my favorite film. AAHHH! It’s really like asking the old woman who lived in the shoe which is her favorite child. I mean, can she even remember all of them? But I do have a poem that I love and come back to…

What the Slippers Know

Oh my! Finally my slippers and I are getting the recognition they deserve! In this season of scandalous awards programs, I am HONORED to have been given this truly wonderful Stylish Blogger Award. For those of you who are new, you can see that my incredible fashion sense — from head to slipper — has…

To Be of Use: Beyond Making Do

Here’s a tandem response today: integrating #Reverb10’s Day 13 prompt on “Action,” asking  “What’s your next step?” with my dovetailed thoughts to Tara’s question posed to us: “Why do you make?” (I am going to put aside for now the fact that when I nannied in 1989, the family used the word “make” as euphemism…

No One is Looking: On Letting Go

So I continue to take part in #Reverb10, a 31-day write-in. Here’s today’s post. Day 5 Prompt: Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? (Thanks, Alice.) This year, I let go of Kevin. Kevin is the name of the man I really and truly fell in love with in…

Where the Wild Onion Grows

Wild onions grow everywhere here. I smell them through the moon roof on those particular weekend days when men are at home in their kingdom yards, busy mowing alone and in harmony. If I made this up, forgive me, but I think maybe someone told me that a long time ago this entire area was…

Untangle Me

My desire to untangle runs deep right now. In savasana last night, I imagined myself going “technology free” suddenly. Saying goodbye to the phones and the televisions, the blogs, Twitter and Facebook accounts that hang on me like screeching monkeys. I imagined what an evening would look like– the savanna of night time from washing…

What Happens While Driving…

One of Colin’s and my favorite things to do is a road trip. We are at our most relaxed on the way to somewhere, with him driving, and me organizing whatever podcast or playlist or wrong turn is up next. Our first road trip, en masse however, had me on edge. I had sweet-fond memories…

Losing Late Nights

It suddenly occurred to me — when I was in the basement waiting to see if the washer would flood/leak — that I am no longer a Night Writer. I used to stay up and journal, scribble, angst-ify long after the sun had gone and the house had gone quiet. In KC, I’d sit on…

Getting the Olivetti 33

I just went ahead, finally, and dished out the $$ on the Olivetti 33, because every writer should own a manual typewriter and this one is so lovely. I did what Mom told me and thought about it for awhile– like two years. Restored to oily perfection by Dan, aka “Mr Typewriter,” from Florrisant, MO,…

Why is “Local” so Weird?

My kids reallyreally like bananas and I am reallyreally glad about that. As some of you know, we are greeny-greensters, so we grow our own veggie garden, make compost, and buy organic and local. Well, sometimes. If we started to apply the “locally-grown” condition to our food (250-mile radius), what would be have to give…