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…
The good news: I did not make a total arse of myself during my first-ever surfing lesson. The bad news: It was nonetheless clear that I will not be mastering that sport in this lifetime. Aside from forcing my ridiculously nervous self down to Waikiki and forking out $40 to fling myself into the ocean…
Brief status update from Hawaii, where our protagonist has traveled to her mother’s house with her eldest child for a bit of R&R. Interest in creating pithy, fabulously interesting blog post: very low Interest in staring stupidly into the tropical middle distance: very high Favorite part of this vacation so far: phoning home and finding…
Yeah, so I set fire to my book last year: every page of it, after a minor and tearful ceremony, in the brick cavity of an undersized fireplace in an average vacation rental on the McKenzie River. (This wasn’t the children’s book—that’s what I wrote to make myself feel better after I burnt up the…