Since I was a little girl, I’ve enjoyed the BBC show Dr. Who, particularly the Tom Baker Dr. Who when I was little, and now all the new reboot Doctors. I especially love the re-generation story lines when the doctor seems to die and is immediately reincarnated into a totally different person, who sounds different and […]
Category: joy
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Open Spaces
I have four delicious days with no urgent deadlines or projects. I’d get this kind of satisfaction from traveling to Tahiti, receiving two daily massages for a week, or… being able to metabolize meals made of nothing but red wine, bacon and dark chocolate with no impact on my weight. I honestly don’t know what […]
Now that my time is parsed, sectioned, subdivided, and carefully annotated to account for every one of my multiple (and seemingly endless) obligations–I have to confront the obvious, which I love to pretend doesn’t apply to me: I’m human. If I can reconcile myself with what might seem like an obvious proposition, then, what does […]
I’ve been trying to get better at tuning in and connecting in some small way with every person I exchange words with today. It’s a fun project-makes me feel very vaguely like the Dalai Lama’s neighbor–like after a lifetime of watching someone else be gracious and wise, it’s my turn. It’s also interesting how ambivalent […]
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Lightness
Someone once said to me that it takes about 10 years of therapy to realize what a total stranger can figure out about you in about three minutes (which sometimes makes me want to go bounding about asking strangers what they see.) I take myself too seriously. I love to laugh, but I think my […]
When I was in my twenties, someone said to me that I would never truly be done examining any issue in my life, that it may lie dormant for a part of my journey but that it would reappear in other guises at different times, and take me off guard. The metaphor at hand was […]
I’m leaving West Philadelphia for Northern Liberties. I’ve lived on the western shore of this city for almost twelve years – its the longest time span I’ve ever spent in a single neighborhood. I used to fantasize about which Philadelphia neighborhood I would leave for, and then the idea of leaving became totally absurd. I […]
Tonight I finally opened one of my two mystery “old file” boxes I’ve been lugging around from apartment to apartment since the mid 90s. Boy, I was organized back in the 90s. I found traces of my old New York life, one of my many partially discarded and partially digested selves. I uncovered my original […]
My grandfather plunked me into the sea before I was six months old. It’s one of my oldest and most gratifying relationships. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in my life, when I step into the ocean, I’m a newborn again. I’m free. I’m safe. I’m floating. I’m happy. Some people have churches, some people […]
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The Death of Procrastination
I have finally killed procrastination for good. Allow me to qualify this statement by adding some specificity. I have finally mastered a student’s enemy: schoolwork-related procrastination. I’m still quite the procrastinator when it comes to several other important life arenas (cleaning, you know who you are and i curse you), but I feel that as […]
It’s been an action packed week. It feels like I should have learned something. I don’t think I learned anything new, but I did reconnect with ye olde life lessons (nothing earth shattering but always humbling in constructive ways.) Monday: The endless battle. Nothing is good enough for my writing group. This is probably a […]
A few years ago during a doctor’s visit a nurse said in passing that you didn’t want to carry a lot of weight into old age, as it would literally weigh you down. I am reminded of that discussion every time I see someone struggle to make it up the subway stairs back to street […]
here’s a quick list of my writing sins (likely incomplete): I say all cool things I think of twice, or more. My narrative pacing requires tuning–I either rush or linger too long My plots (do they exist?) I underwrite certain key points, or bury them I leave awkward phrasing lying around I like ideas and […]
After working for ten years on a piece that was almost, but never quite, satisfactorily finished–I decided, inspired by the Matisse show “Paires et Series” I saw in Paris, that if I couldn’t get my story to behave as I had written it originally, and rewritten it countless times, perhaps it was time for a […]
I wanted to throw in a few elegant gray paris pics into the mix.
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Some Places Are People
We took more than 2000 pictures in our short 9 day stint in France. When I went to put together a small album, 53 pictures total, a subset of the images we had collected, I ended up largely with pictures of people I love. I had some beautiful architecture or surprising scenery in there, but […]
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Paris, Other Eyes
So I went to Paris with my honey, which I understand you are supposed to do, and we toured the bestselling sights, which I suppose was my duty, and it turned out to be a delight, because it forced me to look again, spectate afresh, at what I already thought I knew. So my lesson […]
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Rosamonde Wakes
Just got word that my latest story, Rosamonde Wakes, is now online at FRiGG Magazine.
I’m flying out, friends, soon. My mind is already traveling while my body dutifully reports for my shift at work. My mind’s teeth are slowly biting into the most intensely chocolate frosting of all the frostings found on top of chocolate éclairs in Paris, while my tongue feels the pliant flesh of the puff pastry […]
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Spring and Van Gogh
I find myself invigorated this month, at least since I’ve finished my last two class projects. I’m enjoying the mild, mostly rainless April weather with all its premature flowering activity. The mix of colorful buds weighing down tree branches, and the tender pale green of the newly unfurling leaves, make me want to skip about […]