It wasn't so much the fact she didn't have her teeth in.

Or the fact that she was wearing a nightgown and was obviously, er, naked underneath.

It was probably the fact she hadn't bathed in a few days, having just been sprung from a local rehab joint after a total… Read full post »

So I went to my nerdy-nerd conference in Long Beach, CA this week. It's where a bunch of us nerds in our nerdy profession get together and go to break-out sessions and listen to keynote speakers and eat at silly luncheons. And I got my full massive dose of radiation daily… Read full post »

I know hoarding resides on that vast continuum that makes up the neuroses and predilections of Human Beings.

My ex-husband began hoarding 2 years before our divorce and is burdened to this day by his need to hoard and the soothing mechanism that it affords him.

But I hadn't… Read full post »

I can't remember my words anymore.

I am hoping this is temporary. I can't remember when it started. Maybe a year ago, two years? I'm not sure. I just know I live like Porky Pig in my head half the time: "That's unbelie... that's unbelie...argghh....that's just crazy!"

I ask questions… Read full post »

Love means never having to phone home. Or something like that.

Nothing quite says the Holiday Season more than quietly weeping into your eggnog while pondering the relatives who choose to reject you. Or is that just me?

Blended families are difficult at best, devastating at worst. The ones that… Read full post »

I am embracing Football.

It's my new Black.  Football is the new 30! It is the Sonny to my Cher.

Watching football I don't have to be scolded into teachable moments. If I want a teachable moment, I'll revisit the 5th grade in my mind, thank you very much. I can… Read full post »

For those of you who watch True Blood on HBO, this story may sound familiar.

True Blood explores the relationship between vampires in Bon Temps, Louisiana, who are currently tolerated in society and are trying to be accepted by mortals and there are those humans who accept vampires and those humans… Read full post »

I'm watching the Christmas commercials with a jaundiced eye.

All of the diamond commercials, the "no interest" credit card deals if you pay within 18 months, the Black Friday predictions. I don't know if it's just me. Is it because we are empty-nesters? Is it because we are budget-conscious? Is it… Read full post »

As author Barbara Kingsolver points out, the notion of returning to the land is still reliably stereotyped as a hare-brained hippie enterprise. As we have done just that, I kind of like that description.  It's better than: hick, redneck, hayseed, bumpkin, rube, yokel, clodhopper, hoecake, hillbi… Read full post »

I've been watching the Glenn Beck rally on CSPAN, hosted by Glenn Beck and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation. Since my son has joined the Air Force this has a special resonance for me. Someday, God forbid, I might have a warrior son who is wounded or in need of help.… Read full post »

My son graduated Saturday afternoon. But let's start at the beginning. 2 a.m. early Saturday morning.

He showed up with 2 girls I never met before asking to borrow the car at 7pm Friday night just to go to a local graduation. I said yes even though he was banned from… Read full post »

In an age where Metrosexuals abound and my son has a girl calling him to ask him how to dye her hair, I am married to a lion.

Men now get facials and pedicures, manicures and hair plugs, liposuction and waxing. The line between genders has blurred to an almost impossible… Read full post »

Mary-Louise Parker, currently starring on the Showtime series "Weeds" is the thinking womans actor.  She is able to morph into a character like Meryl Streep does, so you never think of Parker, only focus on who she has become. She made her Broadway debut in 1990, in a production of "Prelude… Read full post »

Now that I'm THIS close to being am empty nester, my Hippie-ness is starting to return. It's coy. It's teasing me.

The last 18 years I've spent being responsible and mature, adult, disciplined [sort of] and reasonable. The first two I stayed home with my son. Fed him organic baby food… Read full post »

Weathermen and Economists have always had the best jobs. They get to be wrong over 50% of the time and still keep their jobs and their 401(k)'s. To add to that short list would be professors who churn out books filled with made-up data created to scare the bejesus out of… Read full post »

Here are the books waiting for me ever so patiently on my table, waiting to be opened and read, bought with much anticipation.

An ecclectic bunch, to be sure.

Twelve Mile Limit by Randy Wayne White.  CarolinaBlue50 turned me onto these books and they are so much fun… Read full post »

"Are you wearing your best piercings?" I asked my son.

"Ha-ha." I look.  He is.

I never thought I'd say those words but hell, there's a lot of things you think you'd never say before you have kids.

I don my fake pearls [I've turned into my mother except I haven't… Read full post »

[This is a re-post in remembrance of my former boss, who left us a year ago today.]

What to you do if your nemesis dies? Besides feel the appropriate grief and conflict?

I worked for D. for 5 years. For 5 years she was my supervisor. At the risk of sounding… Read full post »

Pierce Brosnan, besides having a terrible singing voice a la Mamma Mia! is the father of 5 kids, is a talented painter, is married to Keely Shaye Smith who is neither lipo'd nor anorexic as so many of her hollywood peers. And he is a generous philanthropist.

He came from simple… Read full post »

Almost 30 years ago I worked full-time at an alternative newspaper in Santa Barbara. I wrote articles and helped keep the community events section organized as well. Men and women worked there, there was smoking inside while working, pot smoking in the back, beer drinking at night while working late… Read full post »

The night the neurologist threw a tantrum and stormed out of the hospital with me crying after her to come back was one of the worst experiences of my life. Until my husband almost stopped breathing due to too much narcotic pain medication and almost pulled a "Michael Jackson" as the… Read full post »

When my teenage son wanted to get a lip pierced we went around and around until it was decided, yes, he could do this but it would be the only one. End of subject. And that lasted for one month. The lip piercing almost got infected, got complicated, rings went… Read full post »

21st Century Teenage-hood. I wonder what they were like in caveman days? 800 B.C.? 14th century? Before they had a cellphone, a computer, a pierced lip [or is that just mine?], an ipod and lots of fresh air, free food and a room of their own? Never in the history of… Read full post »

In India and Tibet, some lama's meditate for years next to the funeral pyres of the dead being burned. It is to remind them of how fleeting this life is and to focus on what we cannot see, instead of the material world.

Farrah Fawcett is my burning funeral pyre. She… Read full post »

For Monday June 22nd, 2009 release:

Jon and Kate apologized today for accidently causing Hilary Clintons elbow fracture. Jon and Kate and their 8 were in Washington as part of their reality show. They were touring the White House as a family when Clinton was rushing up the steps to a… Read full post »