Captain Daddy is professionally inclined to report on topics of disaster and death. In our early years together I named this litany of unfortunate events the Trauma Tour. Everywhere we went he had a story to tell: car into tree, drug-addled assault, slow and lonely decay. I endured it, sometimes even with affection for the…
When I started this blog six months ago, I didn’t put my name on it. I didn’t tell anyone I was writing it. I didn’t announce it anywhere. When it comes to new things, I tend to put a toe in the water completely privately. Or maybe even just a toenail. I try it out…
Chicken Little is extraordinarily articulate for the recently-turned-two, as well as uncommonly considerate, which means that she asks permission in eloquent English before doing all of the fabulously experimental things that cross a small person’s mind. Take for example these recent questions: Can I throw my cheese down the stairs? Can I walk on the…
I may not have landed my own column or a book deal from blogging yet (my fantasies) but I have accomplished something! I am extremely pleased to announce that thanks to my recent post (Welcome Home, Chester), Chester has found a new home. Sometime this summer, our favorite dead caribou will be moving from my…
There I stood Friday night, hovering uncertainly in front of a microphone, way more nervous than I should be, and gripping a copy of the High Desert Journal. I’d selected and rehearsed part of my essay to read, waited and watched everyone mingle and sip wine, and now here it was—my fifteen minutes of fame.…
I will be reading from my essay “Passing Through a Green Room”, recently published in High Desert Journal (see Fame vs. Fortune), at the High Desert Journal/tbd advertising downtown Bend Art Walk event tomorrow night, June 5, approx. 6:45 p.m., 856 NW Bond Street Suite 2, Bend. Would love to see some friendly faces! Because…
When I was in my 20s I used to say, “I write when an essay strikes me” or “I have to wait until it’s all there, inside me, ready to come out.” What luxury. Possibility and time were abundant then; pure, delicious creativity the only motivator. If I’d continued waiting for an essay to…
Six years ago Captain Daddy and I came home from the hospital after our baby died to find a tree in the driveway. A group of friends had gone together to buy us this: a six-foot tall crab apple tree sprouting towards the sky, roots tied up with burlap. “We are so sad for…
Nothing like vacation to remind what matters, give perspective, recharge batteries just enough to make you think you should start getting up at 3 a.m. to a) write a book b) play the guitar c) meditate. Not really. I’ve always been a firm believer that 3 a.m. is for sleeping. Chicken Little woke up at…
One of the nicest thing about having kids in your life is that, as a grownup, there just aren’t that many people who say to you, “Oooo, I like your panties.”