Writing the good read
I have a buttload of parsley in my garden. Also, a ton of mint. What do you do with too much parsley and mint? You make tabbouleh. It’s possible that in a couple months, I’ll have tomatoes and quinoa (I’m growing quinoa!!!) and can make a batch of this from all my own ingredients. But…
Today there was a strange truck parked directly in front of, behind, and next to three “No Parking Any Time: Fire Lane” signs. Two men were in the empty lot next to where they parked. I heard the pling whoosh thunk of arrows hitting target. I’d never seen them before. Usually, the neighborhood uses that…
I belong to this amazing organization for freelance writers and editors called Freelance Success. It has been instrumental in all of the work I have done for national publications and websites, and at about a hundred bucks a year, my membership over the last decade or so has paid for itself many times over. Every…
Like a lot of people disgusted by the Wesboro Baptis “Church” — I won’t link to them, but rather to the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center pages about the hate group — I signed the petition at the White House website to make that reprehensible organization a hate group. All petitions at the…
I’ve blogged 30 straight days. It’s harder than I ever remember. You know how people say that if a woman remembered the pain of labor and childbirth the race would die out? The Blogathon is like that. I forget every year how hard it is to write every single day. We have a tradition in…
I understand that people of some faiths have problems with issues like marriage equality and abortion. I understand that those people may have the strongest belief that their faith is the one true faith, and that people who are gay are going against God’s law, that people who have abortions are killing a human being….
I never grow enough peas or beans. Each year, I would plant a few vines of each, just enough to satisfy me as I picked them as they ripened. No peas or beans ever made it to the house. So I decided to plant more. I have three kinds of peas growing — shelling, mange-tout…
My son, as you know, is mildly autistic. One of his longest lasting super-interests has been politics. He talks about it, argues about it, makes the exasperated noises usually uttered by older, more jaded people. I came home from the store today, and Darling Son came rushing to the garage, looking guilty, like he’d been…
Earlier this month, I wrote about my new-found respect for Phillip Lopate, regarded as one of the best living writers of thepersonal essay. I wanted to expand my knowledge of the genre — and I had never thought of it as that before, but as the way some writers opine on a variety of subjects…
I’m going to start a list, compiled from my much-too-frequent interactions with physicians and other healthcare professionals, of things that these professionals say and do that they probably shouldn’t. Some sound funny, but are still potentially problematic. * When you go see your OB/GYN before becoming sexually active after a break, and you ask the…