My London summer "home away from home" 

Bless Google Earth…there it is:   48 Lancaster Gate, London W2 3NA, UK.

It all changed there.  My whole life.  My outlook on life.  In fact, the rather prosaic life I’d been living gave way to the fast lane/… Read full post »

 

 The Roger I knew...with producer Russ Meyer

Okay, let’s go there, finally.

Why does Roger Ebert “tweet” my posts?

Easy but sincere answer?  Damned if I know. 

Not so easy and scarier answer?   I think he still remembers that tiny littl/… Read full post »

Gulliver:  My Oprah Replacement Therapist

I had tried to think of ways to get out of this thing all week. 

This "thing" was an Epona workshop designed to teach volunteers at Equine Voices Rescue & Sanctuary to handle their most traumatized rescues. 

And I… Read full post »

 

 Mattie Russell my maternal great-grandmother

They never mentioned him.   

Never uttered his name, except to tell me his name.  Once.   And only after I had grown up and was apparently ready to hear at least that much.

If I uttered the name, silence fell… Read full post »

While others quibble about whether the shooter here in Tucson was influenced by politics or not, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has decided it’s time to stop splitting hairs.  

I was stunned and inspired by his bravery in giving voice to fears and frustrations I have felt, and written about… Read full post »

 

I saw it.  But I couldn’t believe it.

There I was, in a fast food drive through, behind a man whose back window decal, in small white letters, sent me a message that sent a chill down my spine—just as he’d hoped it would, no doubt. … Read full post »

 

 

 

 My baby left me.

And it wasn’t so bad.

We’re talking about my real baby here.   My baby girl, Thandi, who moved across town with her boyfriend last week—she’s 23 now, so the “baby” thing is kinda ridiculous, of/… Read full post »

No Photoshop tricks here: the twilight view from my favorite bench near the cabin.

This...I have no words for...

Keka "does" Ken Burns--BADLY--with help from Aaron Copland.  Click the YouTube logo to watch full screen, HD.

BEING THERE

During the 12 mile… Read full post »

Only once have I come even a wee bit close to feeling really, truly “impoverished.”

I was a young newly single mom with too many bills left over from her ex’s excesses, a bankruptcy pending to fix that, no bank account, a teaching job which barely covered rent and food… Read full post »

We are so different now, he and I.  

He is not the man I once couldn’t keep my hands off of.   The man I married and had a child with.   It astounds me how we can be so intensely “in love” and fall so completely out of it, later.… Read full post »

I’ve been asked why having profiled friends, other family and a beloved pet here, I’ve yet to write about my mother.    Easy answer.   I didn’t “know” her.   

I knew that she loved me.   Not by what she said but by what she d… Read full post »

This is a strange one.  But…follow along.   There’ll be a test on this later.  In life.   So let me begin with a BIG question:

Why…are you here? 

Seriously.  I’m asking.

What if…there were no lover, no spouse, no fam… Read full post »

After decades of searching, two days ago I found, on YouTube, a clip from a movie which aired on ABC in 1973.  The lead actor was a friend I loved dearly. 

It was an “accident,” my finding this clip.  But of course, there are no accidents.   And when I… Read full post »

 

He was the most gorgeous thing I’d ever seen.  And having  been an entertainment reporter for a “major metropolitan daily,” I wasn’t easily impressed by then.

He sat, smiling beatifically across from me at what was arguably one of the most macabre din… Read full post »

I am a child of Oya.   Or so a Yoruba priest once said.  She is the Yoruba goddess of wind, whirlwinds, hurricanes—she sweeps clean, she changes things.  Her winds can be gentle or they can blow your butt to kingdom come to force the issue.  It’s up to you.

So&he… Read full post »

In her courageous post, Woman of Mystery, Caroline Marie writes:

“…I have friends who don't really know me.  I no longer know how to be emotionally intimate.  I have a social circle, but I am alone.”

I hear ya’, sistah.

I used to say I was “exiled” fo… Read full post »

I’m going to turn down the heat a little bit and just talk about something less controversial this time.

You see…I retire, rather early, in about two weeks. And it tickles me that whenever I tell someone that, s/he says, “Wait—you don’t look old enough to retire!&rdquo… Read full post »

My recent article about Arizona raised some hackles...but also some awareness of the perils of profiling on both sides of the color line.

And it brought back memories, for me, of some of the reasons why I'm not shocked as easily as some about the supposed resurgence of racism in America--now… Read full post »