Two years ago, June 16, 2009, I tiptoed for the first time into Open Salon.

A year ago, on the one-year anniversary, I blogged this:

I love liza Donnelly.  There, I've said it.

In the 80's I used to snip little Roz Chast cartoons out of the New… Read full post »

you only come to me in dreams now

soft, blurred-edged, never sharp

two colors, green and black,

maybe some tan

and words not really spoken

but heard

i bend in the cottage, closing, 

ask you to walk the dog

you step outside

no leash 

photo:… Read full post »

Of all the strange pieces of information I've discovered online in recent days during the Casey Anthony trial, one of the strangest points to the possibility that she confessed to the murder of her daughter in a very real way, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs.

The young mother accused of murdering… Read full post »

Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) totes his laundry in Queens Saturday, June 11, 2011.  (AP Photo/David Karp) 

The New York Times is reporting Saturday afternoon that New York congressman Anthony Weiner, embroiled in controversy the past couple of weeks, has entered a treatment cent… Read full post »

I love two things: Paris, and Woody Allen movies.

It was clear from the open scenes in "Midnight in Paris" that this was a love letter to the City of Light in the same way his "Manhattan" was a love letter to that island.  We see Paris the way… Read full post »

"My father always promised us that we would live in France/We'd go boating on the Seine, and I would learn to dance." - Judy Collins

It came like a thief in the night, really.  He'd always been healthy, second oldest of te… Read full post »

Just when you think a story can't get any weirder, it does.

The New York Times is reporting late this afternoon that Huma Abedin, 35,  the wife of Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), 46, is pregnant with their first child.

The couple was married in July 2010 by Bill Clinton.  The bride… Read full post »

Formal wedding portrait of Huma Abedin and Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), July 2010, Long Island, a photograph that could be more appropriately titled "The Goddess and the Dork from New York."  (AP Photo/Barbara Kinney) 

When word first leaked that the Schwarzenegger-Shriver power marr… Read full post »

If you were inclined to Google "lessons" and "Weinergate" this week you'd find enough to complete your summer reading.  Even before the semi-disgraced politician's late Monday confession that yes, he had irresponsibly tweeted a crotch shot to a young woman not his wife and then fai… Read full post »

If we stood facing the faraway Mexican border in childhood, our backs to Canada, Denver was on our far left, the eastern edge of our frontier. 

We didn't imagine further, except in the pages of books or in dark theaters where newsreels and cartoons still preceded the ten cent… Read full post »

Sixteen years ago I pledged I'd never again allow myself to get sucked into watching courtroom carnival.  The spectacle that was the O.J. Simpson trial gripped many of us.  Then the last few days I found myself watching what was happening in a courtroom less than three hours from my… Read full post »

As we circled the room at grief support this week, I asked the question. 

It's amazing how pieces of gold and platinum and things attached to them can change our lives. My husband is gone seven months now and the rings I wore the past eighteen years… Read full post »

Elizabeth Smart, now 23, speaks at a press conference Wednesday following the sentencing hearing of Brian David Mitchell, the man who held her captive for nine months at the age of 14.  Smart, just returned from a mission to Paris, intends to devote her time now to advocacy for victims.&… Read full post »

Oprah Winfrey, whose final show is being broadcast today after 25 years.

When Oprah Winfrey first bounded onto the talk show stage in the early 1980's at a time when Phil Donahue ruled daytime talk, it was clear she was there to stay and to make a difference.  Her hour-long… Read full post »

It's been a long road since Wichita, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Look Who's Talking and Cheers.  Actress Kirstie Alley is inspiring in a way she never did before as contestant on Season 12 of Dancing With the Stars.

Add me to the list of… Read full post »

While it's difficult to find a bright spot in the case of a New York City luxury hotel housemaid alleging sexual misconduct by the former head of the IMF, a small but significant portion of the population might actually benefit in the wake of the case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

A… Read full post »

A fascinating thing happened in the last two weeks as once again the presidential political season is upon us.

The seas parted for Jon Huntsman.

Who is Jon Huntsman, you ask?  

If you don't know, it's probably time you find out, because if the seas are parting… Read full post »

Dominique Strauss-Kahn.  The former IMF chief formally resigned his post as head of the agency overnight while he remains imprisoned at Riker Island in New York.

The news overnight that Dominique Strauss-Kahn,  currently detained in New York on suspicion of sexual assau… Read full post »

I spent far too much of my morning learning more than I or any other detached citizen needed to know about who the media had decided had been the mother(s) of Arnold Schwarzenegger's child(ren).  I saw pictures, first of a flight attendant and then of a recently retired… Read full post »

The news that former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child out-of-wedlock with a member of his household staff ten years ago comes at an interesting time, swift on the heels of the very public arrest of the head of the IMF on suspicion of sexual misconduct in an expensive suite… Read full post »

Martin Capp was a young Jewish kid from Wabasha, Minnesota, who decided to get into the home building business in the '40's, and just on the heels of World War II was having trouble getting windows.

Someone gave him a break.  

A carload of windows had been refused by… Read full post »

More than anything, I wanted her to finally get a passport.

It was a difficult year for both of us, 2010.  She spent the first three months in a hospital fighting for her life, and managed to survive what my husband ultimately couldn't later in the year.

Sure, we… Read full post »