Two guys were kayaking down the river. Suddenly it dawned on them that the water was getting faster and foamier and there was a lot of noise up ahead. The first guy tensed up and tried paddling backward, to no avail. The second guy stayed relaxed but became very alert, and… Read full post »

I haven't posted for a long time because I decided this blog needs a focus and identity it lacked. Thinking about the focus and identity of the blog exposed that I needed a little focus myself, as a writer. This new blog, which has changed and may again as I evolve,… Read full post »

I want to say, for the record, that I have great sympathy for the mayor of Venice.

Just being a mayor would be hard enough. What with infrastructure and constituencies and understanding governmental bonds and things. But Giorgio Orsoni presides over a town that is an international treasure. So when… Read full post »

I was standing in the security line at the Texas State Capitol on a gorgeous Saturday morning at the Texas Book Festival. Hundreds of authors speak and books are sold

. I was on my way to hear a novelist talk about writing when the very tense woman beside me began… Read full post »

When I talk about my ex-husband, my children’s father, I say he was a brilliant, compassionate man who was also a bi-polar alcoholic. It’s a sound bite. It exonerates me from the crime of divorcing him while acknowledging something good about him.

It doesn’t really say much.

Lately… Read full post »

Yesterday I was racing around the city, dropping kids at various schools and feeling harried. Again. I was having anxiety about my younger ones’ high school. There was the homeless person on South Congress bridge I couldn’t help…much. There were the lines of cars on 360, packed lik… Read full post »

I remember sitting with a group of fun women, some decades older than I was. They were talking about men and gossiping and griping about work. And I thought, “They’re no different from me.”

And then I realized that was a disturbing thought. Somehow I thought they should be farther a… Read full post »

It’s  about “at bats.”

That’s what my friend Jonathan told me when I called him up, fearful that this new adventure my kids and I had launched into was a failure.

We moved to Austin, a new city, with a new, very competitive school. I was planning to finally test myself… Read full post »

The other night, my friend Kelly introduced me to Peche, an absinthe bar.

I dearly wish that I had paid attention, beforehand, to the absinthe literature she sent me.

Had I read what she sent me, I would understand that I was venturing into a land at least as… Read full post »

I’ve been thinking today about a woman named Beverly Bubeck.

She changed my life.

I can’t remember how I met her. I was a young associate magazine editor and she was a motivational speaker. She asked me to help her write her book.

Beverly was closer to my mother’s age than… Read full post »

While I’ve been travelling, in recent years, I’ve also been doing a lot of interior traveling. Journey to the Center of my Psyche and Soul and Mind. The major question there was:

 “Why do I keep making horrible decisions?” Why do I keep marrying the wrong guy? Why don&rsq/… Read full post »

When we left Dublin, we fled to Kilkenny.

We had no reservations so after trying a couple of the B&Bs with creaky floors and flowered wallpaper, we dragged our huge backpacks into to Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel which was sleek and modern to a fault and just tres chi chi.

It looked… Read full post »

Dublin scared the crap out of us.

It started on the bus ride from the ferry. A bunch of very drunk young men were singing anti-American songs and making lewd comments to the American girls in the front of the bus. They ended by smashing in one of the windows and… Read full post »

Some people play Farmville. I play airfare. I get on Trip Advisor and type in that I want to go to Paris, or London or Athens, etc. And I put in a date. And I see what number I get. I really do want to go to Paris; I just can’t… Read full post »

Robert Frost would never have done this.
I saw a picture of him once in a National Geographic. It was black-and-white. He was in his cabin in his baggy pants. He was the picture of a writer.
He would not have had a Facebook fan page, unless his editor made him. He would/… Read full post »

Ginny’s Little Longhorn Saloon is a tiny, nondescript bar on a commercial street in north Austin. The first thing you notice when you walk in is, of course, the spotlighted chicken cage, sitting atop a piece of plywood resting on a pool table. The plywood has numbers on it from one… Read full post »

I have arrived at the Jogging Path of Mindfulness.

First let me say that I have been jogging 20 years. Never very far.  Never very fast.  But by gum, I’m out there.

My first jogging path we shall call the Oval of Eternity. At least that’s what it felt… Read full post »

The traveling buddy is the key.

When I was in my 20s, Itraveled with my friend Kelly. Kelly planned where we would go, how we would get there and where we would stay and made little 3X5 cards telling us how to find a bathroom in Spanish. I stuck my… Read full post »

It was raining in Paris. And cold.  My teenage children and I stood, shivering in our summer garb on one of those streets that branch into several other streets, searching for our hotel. I slipped into a café where I proffered a scrap of paper with the hotel’s address and&mdash/… Read full post »

Between the town of Taos, and Taos Pueblo, there’s a long road populated by a few houses, some horses, and the Tiwa Kitchen restaurant. In many ways, this lonely stretch marks the border to another country.

At its end sits a Native American village that has been here for more… Read full post »