I am a scream looking for a mouth.  My friend Cubby said that, and it's one of those quotes that a writer gets quoted on all over the place, at least on the back covers of his paperbacks.  I actually searched for it just now and didn't come… Read full post »

This is supposed to be a short story, so we're going to have to do this quickly. Please hang on, much obliged.

Michelangelo was given a piece of marble.

Later, people asked him how he had decided what the David was going to look like. His consistent reply was that God had already… Read full post »

The color that will soon be fading.  The sun is a regal crown of gold presiding over the ocean, the magnificent ocean that I can't live without at least being close to, and the crown that's about to disappear, taking with it its mystical hues.

Tomorrow it will… Read full post »

I've been making these designer tote bag things.  It's a long story, but the threads of my life seem to be self-propelled of late.

Recently, maybe eight months or so ago, I said on Facebook that I was going to get a sewing machine and start sewing again. … Read full post »

In this one, you are young, no more than three.  You are chubby.  You're on your grandparents' farm.

In front of you is dried hay that stands maybe as high as the knees of your overalls.

Behind you is a fence with two horizontal posts, and behind the fence is… Read full post »

The bartender, the new one, who didn't yet know who the regulars were or what they drank, the bartender who could have made up any history about himself that he cared to, said he he was from Seattle.

He didn't say what his name was.

"Ah, the rain," I… Read full post »

It's 40 years later, give or take.

Timing is everything.

Sleep wasn't a high priority.  It was what she did after sex with Bob, sporadic as that was, or when there were about 4 hours left till sunrise and she'd need to have her game on, or when… Read full post »

What is my writing trying to do with me?

What are these voices?  What are these words?  Where have they been all this time?

I am trying to be still and let the writing do the talking.  When I'm writing - and this is a thing too, a part of… Read full post »

Oh my GOD, Point Reyes!  (pronounced 'rays')  I can't believe it, I'd forgotten the name of the town for years and years.  It's from another lifetime, literally.

I used to take Emma out there on Friday nights after we got off work in San Francisco.  Maggie lived on the… Read full post »

Wow, that is a prompt for the ages.

It implies I usually have some kind of idea of what I'm doing, then what I'm going to do next.  That I have some kind of idea of who I am ad what the day is going to be like… Read full post »

3 things I want to lose:

1.     The idea that I don't have enough money.

2.     The idea that I need to bee nervous about writing.

3.     The idea that my relationship is too unconventional, 'unconventional' being something of a euphemism.&n… Read full post »

I was watching tv late at night when something weird happened.

I was overcome with hunger.

I'd been dozing in and out of whatever was happening on tv.

This is the way I usually drift off, watching tv, trying to stay awake for at least some of Letterman, whom… Read full post »

Oh, dear me.

Not so much.

Not so much.

In the seventies and early eighties, the fashion of the day, before AIDS and STD's you knew about, was to have a few people, 5 or 7, to call for, or to be summoned by.  (Nowadays there's a tawdry… Read full post »

Stuck in traffic.

Los Angeles traffic.

It wasn't all that jammed-up, more or less pretty normal for mid-day on a week day.

At least I was able to make it into second gear most of the time between red lights and green lights.  Sometimes, third gear.

As an aside, I long… Read full post »

Actually, I was talking about her earlier today, in relation to something she'd said, in relation to experiences she's been having of late that involve changes in her relationship with her son, her daughter-in-law, and her grandson.

"A daughter is your daughter for life," she'd said, "But a… Read full post »

Oh, gosh, who to write about?

Pat, a woman, my friend, me mentor, my hero.

We've been talking a lot about our relationship of late, actually.

I have to keep this on a fairly public level, which may not be so easy.  We have a kind of institutionalized relationship,… Read full post »

Isn't that the way it always seems, especially as it becomes increasingly difficult to predict what life will be like 6 months from now, and, also, to remember, really remember, what it was like 6 months ago, what uncertainties loomed on the horizon 6 months ago.

There's… Read full post »

I am from another planet in another galaxy.  I love my little planet.  It's not actually all that little - but it's considerably smaller than its alter, which they call Earth.

My planet's is called Sena.  Sena is my true home, my planet of origin.

There are still days when I… Read full post »

I make chicken salad in the Hollandaise Kitchen.

Charles loves it.

He eats very quickly, a remnant of his childhood, and says he doesn't really taste anything . 

But he loves the chicken salad I make, usually with Kosher chicken.

It nurtures both of us, me in cooking it… Read full post »

There's a wooden counter in the kitchen, painted white, kind of scratched and a little bit uneven.  It doesn't quite wash clean.  There are usually a few drops of paint and other bits and pieces that proclai8m it male territory.  That word again, territory.

So:  Charles has… Read full post »

My kitchen.

I love my kitchen because it's s strangely balanced place that meets my boyfriend's needs and my own.

Charles had lived in the apartment for 11 years before I moved in 2 years ago.

He was so very brave in allowing me to actually share the rent with… Read full post »

My kitchen.

I love my kitchen because it's s strangely balanced place that meets my boyfriend's needs and my own.

Charles had lived in the apartment for 11 years before I moved in 2 years ago.

He was so very brave in allowing me to actually share the rent with… Read full post »

Five things I've feared:

1.     Leaving two marriages, my decision;

2.     Going to grad school;

3.     Leaving grad school;

4.     Starting to write again;

5.     The taxes I didn't expect to owe for… Read full post »

It was the grossest thing I've ever seen:

Oh, GOD, I'm embarrassed beyond words.  I should never, ever say this.  It's just too much.  It was of my own doing, which makes it infinitely awfuller.

Please understand I don't do this kind of thing anymore.

No way in… Read full post »

I heard the footsteps gaining ground on me.  I clutched my keys in my right hand, the car key extending from my clenched fist.

It was nighttime.  Streetlights provided a halo-ed glow, soft, that didn't actually penetrate the fog, merely announcing their presence from block to block.

I… Read full post »