This is Sunset Boulevard. We are back home after driving from Amarillo, Texas this morning. I drove until 2 hours from LA. Ray brought us the rest of the way. We listened to The Memory Keeper’s Daughter audio book the majority of the day. I think I enjoyed it…I am too tired right now to…
Category: Stories
On the Road Again & Thoughts on Political Differences
Here are Cordelia and Sammie in their bed on our return journey to California. We left north central Texas at 6 pm and are just arriving in Amarillo at midnight. Tomorrow we hope to have a long day on the road, stopping in either Kingman, AZ or Barstow, CA. This time we plan on 2…
100 Things that I Love (With no effort to include everything and in no particular order)
1) Trader Joe’s Market 2) Homemade frozen strawberry yogurt 3) Cinnamon rolls 4) Comfortable shoes 5) A firm bed 6) A warm bath 7) Swimming underwater 8) The sun on a cool day 9) The night sky 10) Camping 11) Hot chocolate 12) Project Runway 13) Choral music 14) Bach 15) Art Museums 16) My…
Unexpected Life Lessons
Tragedy struck this past week in Beverly Hills. The beloved soccer coach at the high school – a thirty-year-old man in excellent health – died suddenly from a massive heart attack. This is sad all on its own, but it became more personal for me when one of my high school seniors, who has been…
Family Visit and Straining to Hear
My brother, Sam; his girlfriend, Jaime; and Sam’s grown kids Hutch and Charlsie are visiting us at the moment. This is my little brother – five years younger than I am – and he and I are the two remaining siblings out of a family of six children. We are funny together. We are more…
The Joys of Writing “Flash” and Some Reading Recommendations
I currently am teaching an online course on Flash Fiction and Flash Memoir for Story Circle Network. This subject is close to my heart since flash is one of my favorite modes of writing. For the course, I have read a lot of short-shorts both fiction and memoir and have been reminded of just how…
A Documentary to See: Diane Vreeland – The Eye Has To Travel
I just returned from seeing a wonderful documentary on Diane Vreeland, who was the fashion editor for Harper’s Bizarre from 1937 – 1962; Vogue from 1962 – 1971; then the curator for the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until 1984. Vreeland was responsible for transforming fashion magazines into trendsetters,…
Flash Memoir: “High-Top” Memories
When I was growing up, I had a problem buying shoes. My feet were small and wide, and in my little Texas town of 7,000 it was not always easy finding shoes that fit me in the local shoe stores. This meant at the very least traveling 25 miles over to Sherman, which had a…
Roget’s Thesaurus: A Hard Copy Must-Have
Roget’s Thesaurus. Ah, heaven. I try my best to educate my students on the necessity of having a hard copy of this three-inch thick book around if they are truly interested in writing. After all, when we’re stumped for just the right word, they see me stand up and head to my bookcase. “It’s time…
Hope Springs Review
This afternoon, we went with family and friends to see the movie, Hope Springs starring Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. This is a story about a couple who has been married 32 years but who are disconnected emotionally and sexually from one another. Steve Carrell plays their marriage/sex therapist and you watch as this…
20 Minutes a Day 