It’s all too easy to put off loving where we are until everything is perfect. What can you love about where you are now? Blergh. If I were a weather man, that’s how I would describe the weather today. Cold, damp, rainy, grey. It’s all about the view. I look out my window and what…
That’s the “story” I like to tell myself, though it isn’t true: I am not a finisher. I recoil at the examination of my life as such. Why? Because my life is a veritable trash heap of unfinished projects. I start all kinds of things — scrapbooks, craft projects, closet clean-outs, books, writing books, pet…
What can you say right now with certainty? This I can say for certain. “All the time that you have left is in your hand, right now.” How this plays out is: if you want to talk to your mom, and say you have some idea making a video of her sage advice or just a…
All of life is a thing marked and used.This is the island where my mother is still living. There is not a great deal of the “normal” here. We are just a bunch of hangers on. For those of us here, we are eating off the breadcrumb trail from whence we came. There is a lot…
I can remember one of the first really scary movies I saw.
It was “The Giant Spider Invasion.” That classic 2-star fave came out in 1975. Which means someone in my family let me see that film when I was FIVE! If I recall, it was at the drive-in.
For years and years afterward, I literally RACED up the steps of our split foyer home, anytime I was caught alone on the lower level. Just beyond the doorway, I was sure a giant spider was lurking, ready to pounce.
I love the big, unreasonable scares of Halloween. I love that feeling underneath my heart, the pit of doom in my stomach. I love the ghoulish decor and horrifying costumes. I love “Modern Family”‘s special, and all the other Halloween themed fun.
I take a pass on new fangled “safe” fun, like Trunk or Treat, or going for a spin with the kids in their costumes around the mall. The street where you live may be scary place: the mall is 100 times scarier.
I’m intrigued by those who have a distaste for Halloween terror and frights. Whatever its roots — whether in pagan history or Christian hallows — life itself is terrifying. It’s filled with war, cancer, ebola, racism, rape and major league worship of criminals. There’s bullying, mean girls, political machinations and just plain natural catastrophe. Some days, a zombie apocalypse seems like it would be an anti-climax.
I guess that’s why I love Halloween… it’s the day the dead, the weary, the twisted, the frightened, the entombed, the maniacal — finally getting a chance to feel free.
Here’s a few of my favorite Halloween videos. Enjoy:
Andy, going through the Haunted House:
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From Shaun of the Dead, greatest zombie film ever.
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After the doctor broke the news to my mom and dad and me that mom would die soon, I held onto the 15 cent spiral notebook like it was a life raft. There isn’t enough time to ask and get answers to the really big questions in life before life says “I’m outta here.” It…
The deluge came out in the general direction of Ridgefield artist Randi Jane Davis this past weekend at City-Wide Open Studios. Her painting (above), called “Three Blind Men” (in private collection) wasn’t the only wonderful piece of work I’d seen that day. But it was the one that reignited my feelings about aloneness. So Ms. Davis…
This is where I’m writing, if you are looking for me. If I bother to look up, this is the view from my desk, where I work, over my left shoulder. I often don’t look up, because my head is “in the game.” I may be found checking FB now and then, or pausing to…
You’re not happy. You’re still all-you.Dear You, Hey. Are you feeling a little “over-seen” in these past few weeks? Yeah, I know how you feel. When “public” suicide happens, it’s so substantially private — so completely hidden inside the person who has departed — that it’s hard not to feel an equal sense of horror and…
Two flights, five burgers at the Atlanta TGI Friday’s airport location. A bag of gummy Lifesavers, and of course, the real lifesavers: four headsets, an iPad and two iPhones with digital movies. One hour’s drive, and we are home. By home, I mean. HOME. Not Iowa, the place I grew up. I mean: here. Connecticut.…
In the off chance that one of the three people who reads this blog notices, the answer is yes: I changed the tagline. The new tagline is: Culture. Angst. Love. Why did I change it? Because I am always wondering: Is this blog about me? Or something else? Even after all these years, I was not…
The one true fact of being a girl is whenever or however you enter the world and, despite your best efforts otherwise, you are thrust into a world where you are expected to “put out.” Not just in the defined way you can imagine. In every way. Whatever we believe about our first world culture and equality in…
Boston Review has a poetry competition around the corner. I started collecting some of my unpublished pieces to send off for the event and found one or two I did not even remember writing. That because my writing “collection” is stowed “safely” inside my mac (and backed up!), stored as if it were some kind…
This past weekend, I had the chance to return to a place I once considered home: Kansas City. By home, I mean it was the place where I became the person I am now. I lived in Kansas City from the ages of 24 to 34. For those 10 years, I was single, except 2…
In Philadelphia, the quiet car fills up completely– so completely that I can’t keep my screen hidden from my seat mate. I don’t know him, but I know enough that he was kind. He gave up his window seat to a couple so that they could sit together. From WAS to PHI, the quiet car…
