writer/producer
The inescapable, meaningless state. Others define it with certainty, and they’re lying – maybe (more kindly) whistling in the dark. I reject essentialism until I am forcibly reduced to it. So now when I am on the ballot, the subject of stirring speeches, I take stock again. I know this thing I am does not…
Andrea Skinner has told her story, and asked fans of her mother—Alice Munro—to incorporate it into our personal stories about Munro. I agree to her terms. It’s the least I can do. I feel grateful that Skinner finally shared her burden, and sad that she bore it alone for so long. It’s an honor to…
Well, the Old Pink burned this morning. It didn’t burn DOWN exactly, but it looks gutted. A friend says the roof is totaled. Hard to see how it makes sense to do anything with the structure now but raze it. We’ll see. It’s a big loss for a lot of people. It’s a moderate loss…
Historically, in the words of a former acquaintance, I am “very political”. This tends to just mean I read a lot, engage in a fair amount of activism, and fling my opinions around dinner parties and the internet like strands of drool from a Newfoundland’s mouth. Over the years I’ve come to do all of…
When George Floyd was murdered, Midway burned.I know it’s close to my home because I shop there, but I know it’s NOT close to my home, because the flames never reached me. I met Iris Logan right after we moved here, walking down her street after shopping at Goodwill. She was close to the flames,…
Yesterday, my friend Margaret threw a party. It was mostly because she wanted to have people over to eat chocolate and play cards, but it was nominally to celebrate the 25th anniversary of my sobriety. It was really nice. She baked a cake. My friend Julia had given me flowers for Thanksgiving, maybe because she…
I really do love Facebook memories, because they are the scrapbook I wander through daily in my tattered Miss Havisham dress, visiting my past lives. Today my digital memory recalled that it’s the 10th anniversary of Lou Reed’s death. I loved Lou, but this milestone is interesting to me because for the past week I…
When I say that I have been a feminist my whole life, what I mean is that I have been a feminist for as long as I can remember. And that memory begins 50 years ago today, when Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs at tennis. I was 3 years old, so obviously I don’t…
I hurl so much unsolicited writing into the world, and in return have often heard: “you should write a book!” I usually take this to mean “wow, you write…a LOT. Shouldn’t you put it somewhere?” So for years I’ve chosen to receive that comment as kindness but didn’t think much else of it. I had…
First: my child. My precious child. My precious child is in Los Angeles, thrilled to be clear of the whirring helicopter blades of his hovering mother. The mother is thrilled that a healthy teenage balance has been restored, after a few years of developmentally staccato clinging codependent enmeshment, about which we had no choice because…move…