One Stinky Breath at a Time
My adorable Chinese medical doctor, Scott Blossom, tells me that the lungs are connected to grief – which explains my love affair with cigarettes this past week. I wasn’t going to tell him I was smoking, and planned on not having a smoke until after our 5pm...
The Transvestite, the Smoker and My Grandmother Underwater
A long time ago, in another life, I was an eager, young journalist - delighted to take any assignment I was offered from my editor at the East Bay Express. I'd scoot around the streets of Berkeley writing stories about local artists, pieces on the new trend in juice...
Real Cowboy Poetry
There’s poetry in not getting what you want. Tugging hard at the flower that doesn’t break easily from the bush. It’s not yours. So when my last two texts to the cowboy went unanswered, I realized, shoot, a door was being closed on me hard and I wasn't ready. I’m...
That Sneaky, Sneaky Nap
In honor of Plant a Kiss Day ** (Sunday, April 29) I decided that instead of doing what was suggested – which was to spread a little love in the world – doing generous deeds like some of my incredible friends came up with - giving away bundles of lavender, setting up...
Hungry For The Sound of My Own Music
A couple of weeks ago, David Bowie put out a new record, which is a big deal in the music industry. The man is 66-years-old, a legend, a huge rock star. I’d heard an interview with a member of his band a few days before the record launched, and the interviewer asked,...
Finding Me Some Outgoing Guts and Imagination
"Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." Sylvia Plath Wow. You go Sylvia Plath. And here I was all set to write a piece on how I was struggling to find...
We Don’t Do It Alone
When I was in my mid 20’s and in art school, one of my roommates brought over an older French woman for dinner one night. At one point she got up close to one of my abstract watercolors, and reading it like a Rorschach test proclaimed, “you’re just like Sisyphus** –...
Do People Know They’re Alive?
The other day in Wild Writing I found myself writing about longing, and longing took me to love, and then I got embarrassed because I thought I should be writing about something more important – like work – and I struggled – felt a little lost in the land of love. And...
This is a Letter
This is a letter to martinis, chicken liver pate and Girl Scout cookies. To late night games of Blitz and Hangman on my Iphone. This is a letter to the small corner of the bed that I unfold each night, a cotton envelope that I slip myself into. This is a letter to the...
The Power of Asking
A couple of years ago, right after my Dad died, I fell into this funny mid-life thing where I felt really flat about teaching – felt in fact that I had taught everything I knew how to teach – that I was doing it with my eyes closed and it wasn’t serving me or anyone...