Cool night. Nice westerly wind. Late. Sounds of the highway off in the distance. Crickets nearby. Tired after a long day’s work. Organizing junk, mowing, editing, visiting, renting out an apartment, and eating dinner with friends. Not much detail tonight. Just a chance to get this down before a quick bath to wash off the…
Category: Flash essay
A Friend Who Is Dying
My friend Peter is dying. He is 56. He hasn’t felt great for the last few months, but thought he might have some low-grade bug that was dragging him down. As it turned out, he had cancer that started in his colon and has since infiltrated his liver and his lungs. The doctor has given…
Flash Essay Prompt: Hauntings
My four dead siblings haunt me. Not in a bad way, please understand. It is as if they are always nearby, as if they are sprawled on the couch and chairs near me now, reading, laughing, talking to one another. They also sometimes talk to me, but usually not. I can see them in my…
A Good Feeling on Several Counts
I am writing tonight after a very satisfying day. We had our annual neighborhood garage sale, which proved to be as much fun as it has been in years past. We started bright and early this morning (Ray and I were putting signs out at 6:30) and our first customers arrived exactly at 7 am….
Texas, Heat and Tomorrow’s Garage Sale
The fans are whirring, the windows are open, the doors are open, too, with the screen doors keeping out the mosquitoes that are surely in search of a nice juicy morsel of flesh. Ray is already upstairs in the bedroom in the air conditioning; I suspect he may already be sound asleep at 9:33 pm. The…
H & H in Texas in Summer
I am sitting in our Victorian in Texas, recovering from the combination of humidity, heat and excessive walking we have done today. We are still putting the finishing touches on the house across the street before it goes on the market – literally tomorrow – plus we have been preparing for a new renter who…
An Ojai Mystery
I have been AWOL for the past several days. The gist is I was dead-dog tired and needed a break after working non-stop with my student on his 20 page paper, along with my online students, plus a daughter who needed some help on something she was writing, plus, plus, plus… So, we went up…
My Writing Teacher Life…
I had students this afternoon, two of them, cousins, who are both sweet and well-mannered boys. One is going into 6th grade, the other is in college, and both need help with their writing. As it turns out, I have two more of their extended family I also see regularly, two older boys, one still…
On the Topic of Balance
I don’t know much about balance. I either go full tilt or am dead-dog tired and there’s not much in-between. I want to know more about this concept; I put that word on most To Do lists, as if all I really have to do is schedule it in along with all the zillion other…
Thomas More’s Utopia and Me…
Today I have been learning about Utopia, which was a book published in 1516 about an imagined society by the political philosopher, Thomas More. He covers a few things that I find especially interesting since it’s been my contention for a while now that all troubled youth need to be taken out to the country…
20 Minutes a Day 