{A re-post…} Tall-tale-telling imp in the making. My dad is a master storyteller who always gets the punchline or dramatic pause just right. My siblings and I spent many nights perched on the side of our beds listening wide-eyed and rapt to tales of my dad’s haunted childhood or how his grandpa lay…Continue Reading
Etcetera
I’m Back and Blogging THAT
Wait until you see these characters in action. We wrapped the BlogTHAT pilot this past weekend and it turned out better than expected. You know that zen kinda feeling you get when everything is aligned? That was this – the actors, the crew, the script, the direction all came together into one huge…Continue Reading
Saying Goodbye
The other day I visited a psychic. Forget about my vow to never see a seer again; I went because I’m needful of someone who knows what’s next. Either way, she addressed some people previously in my life who I still fought saying goodbye to, completely. That’s because the thing with me is I…Continue Reading
PROMPTuesday #207: Who Was Your Believer?
In February 1978, my family moved to Buffalo Grove, Illinois from Foster City, California. Recently battered by a grumpy blizzard of legendary proportions, Chicago looked in February how I felt: tired, beat up, and gray. I’d turned 10 in November a few months earlier and hated my life. My dad took us from my beloved…Continue Reading
Warriors in Pink
I despise talking about cancer. Most of the time, I pretend it doesn’t exist so it can’t take me by surprise anymore, and I imagine that’s probably the case for some of us; but it’s the people who DO talk about cancer that kick it in its face, say NO YOU DON’T GET TO HAVE…Continue Reading
It’s OK to Not Be Cool
I was a moony kid. At the tender age of six or seven, I’d be found under a tree, looking through the branches at the clouds in some deep daze it took 85 mom-shouted “DEBORAHS!” to shake me out of. I read books while I walked to school, inadvertently wandering off the curb and into…Continue Reading
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Stripper Halloween
(What my eight-year-old wants to be for Halloween) (How I see her in my THE-WHOLE-WORLD-IS-GROWING-UP-TOO-FAST-AND-BLINDLY-ACCEPTING-THE-WOMANIZATION-OF-OUR-LITTLE-GIRLS mind’s-eye.) I’d like to know what happened to kids’ Halloween costumes. Like, when did Paris Hilton start designing them? Because slutty is totally on sale at Party City. The girls just wanted simple vampire girl…Continue Reading
PROMPTuesday #205: High School
I gave it away in the title, but for the tired or coffee-lacking, today’s writing prompt is “high school.” One of the most heartbreaking high school laments for me is Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen.” And now that I have two daughters of my own, my heart positively bursts at the thought they’ll feel…Continue Reading
My First Job: Not a Bowl Full of Cake
This is a re-post. My daughter asked me about my first job today and I was happy to share all the sordid details. “It’s time,” my mom announced at the dinner table, and I knew just what she meant. For months, she’d insisted I look for a job and that evening over the…Continue Reading
PROMPTuesday #204: Cause and Effect
Let’s do a classic writing prompt today, shall we? I’ll get us started with a line and you can complete the story: She grabbed my arm as I opened the door. “Will we ever be friends again?” I shook my head when I replied as kindly as I could. “I like you.…Continue Reading
Keep Going
I’ve always known I’d be a writer in some capacity or another, even if only in my head. I’d love to make my living wielding words, and to some extent, I have, but I’m still not quite in the sun-splashed writer’s loft I’ve imagined since the third grade. Every day, I see that nooks…Continue Reading
PROMPTuesday #203: Autumn
I love fall’s first snap, even in Southern California. It’s a slowing, a storing up, a softening I look forward to every year. The blue skies mute imperceptibly at first, the light looks like an impressionist painting. There’s a barely noticeable chill that lends itself to visions of fireplaces, hot cocoa, good books…Continue Reading
