We recently adopted from my sister’s family the dinner-hour pastime “Sad Mad Glad Rad”. The idea is that each person relates an occasion during their day that elicited each of these four emotions (“Rad” referring to “radical”, which is only sort of an emotion, but adds a wild-card element). SGMR started as a structured way…
I haven’t actually worked on my book in months. I rewrote the proposal last September for a consult with an editor. That’s the closest I’ve come to delving in since those knee-jerk edits right after the bonfire. I’ve needed that time; to digest, to recover. After all, the whole point of setting fire to the…
I wish I could say that my local creative community was always a bastion of support and collaboration. Instead it often seems like the cattiest of cocktail parties, at which everyone is full of compliments until you walk away. I suppose nastiness is everywhere. If we writers were moles, the predators would be hawks and…
During the last of three layovers that Chicken Noodle and I endured on our journey home from Hawaii, I ordered us dinner in an airport brewpub. When the meals arrived, I reached over and snatched a French fry off of Noodle’s plate and stuck it in my mouth. Little did I know this simple act…
Six months ago I sat down and banged out an essay about my grandmother. It came easily in an hour or two, the fluid culmination of thoughts I’d had since her death nine years ago. Horizon Air picked it up and ran it in their January issue. I could not have predicted the response. Total…
In the course of a weekend, Chicken Noodle turned four and Chicken Little turned two. After wiping up the frosting and recycling the wrapping, I realized I have somehow become the elated mother of two gorgeous girls who drink milk from cups, walk on their own and sleep through the night. I simultaneously feel my…
“Blogs are dead.” This statement of doom was uttered by one of my writing-group cohorts at a recent meeting, roughly two seconds after I announced that I had started one. Naturally, blogs are dead. This is the story of my life—the thing I finally catch on to has already passed the cool kids by. By…
Last week I paused at the supermarket and selected Valentines for the chickens to distribute to their fellow preschoolers. After passing by innumerable boxes emblazoned with mainstream cartoon personalities (likely to please the chickens, but make me gag), I discovered cards emblazoned with fish—as you tipped the card around in your hand, the images moved…
Yesterday I submitted three essays to magazines. Last week, I submitted another to a contest. It’s amazing how after all of this time the submitting part of the writer’s equation still feels so great. Even though cognitively I know that the odds are stacked against me and that the most likely result is dreaded rejection,…
“Explain yourself,” my step-father intoned from the driver’s seat as we traveled to the north shore of Oahu. “Justify your existence!” He snickered wickedly. This is his idea of small talk. JB is cursed with an existential preoccupation. He takes stock of life regularly—his and everyone else’s. What have we accomplished? What will we leave…