Yesterday for the first time in a while I felt the mad rush of physical being. I felt the exhiliration of strength returning. I felt the sheer wonder of taking a breath. 

It was pretty good. I've felt a similar high joy in an emotional way but this was utterly of… Read full post »

Watching Rachel Maddow recite the many good things the healthcare bill does, I was elated. Hearing that Republicans have vowed to repeal the bill, I was insulted. My insurance pays for life-saving care. My insurance has saved my life. It is easy and natural to shield oneself from the bloody, painful,… Read full post »

Thanks to everyone who has worked on my behalf, the medical reviewers at Blue Cross have taken a second look at the case for proton beam radiation therapy and have approved my treatment.

 I would like to thank medical advocate Jennifer Brokaw, my superb surgical team of Drs. Christopher Ames and… Read full post »

It's been a while since I posted on Open Salon.

I've been recovering from cancer surgery and waiting for the insurance company to approve the next course of treatment, which is 8 weeks of proton beam radiation therapy at Loma Linda Hospital in Southern California.

This treatment… Read full post »

Dear J,

Well, my passion is unruly, J. I turned from writing to you -- telling you I was going to work on one piece -- to writing some other things, unexpected things, things that pushed forward to the front of the line. You know, I write a lot of what… Read full post »

While I was in the MRI machine today, I thought of my friend Tom Fowler, the artist who died because of lack of health insurance.

(Not the artist named Tom Fowler who is Mignon's husband -- a different artist named Tom Fowler.)

The MRI machine was taking pictures of… Read full post »

Oh, what sky! Oh, what Tundra V8 power up Clipper toward Portola and toward the sky! Oh what reverence before rainclouds: Where in the built world is found that color gray? Can it be the sun-silvered look of weathered redwood fenceboards in the low, leaning fences of Sunset backyards? Can it… Read full post »

That's Marlon Brando in "The Fugitive Kind." He and Joanne Woodward drive out to a cemetery in the night and get out of the car and she says, "You hear the dead people talking?" and he says, "Dead people don't talk." 

"Sure they do," she says. "Chatter away like birds ...… Read full post »

I wonder what it's like to be in a burning building or to get hit by a car. Not that I want to get hit by a car but don't you wonder too? Don't you wonder what it's like in Antarctica and outer space? Being in surgery felt like being in… Read full post »

Well, so Sarah Hepola, my editor at Salon, called yesterday and asked if I'd mind if my Open Salon posts went up on the Salon.com front page, and I was pleased -- of course I wouldn't mind, it was an honor. I still feel that way after many years at Salon… Read full post »

After decades lighting up the screens of memory and emotion, revealing ghosts, making dormant patterns appear as if dusted with fingerprint powder, finding heat to make readable the invisible ink of preconscious inscriptions, decoding obscure languages spoken by personal archetypes, learning the many… Read full post »

So. Well, the next book. The next book I think I will call

 Problem Solved: True Stories of [21] Real People who Reached a Crisis, Asked for Help and Changed Their Lives.

How do you like the title? Kind of ok, I guess. It gets the point… Read full post »