ON NOT CONNECTING DOTS

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving that I am embarrassed to think of it. I told Tammy on the beach this morning that I didn't feel I deserved such a lovely day. She said, "It's best not to connect the dots." Our drive over was uneventful—good news given forecasts of snow and ice. We walked …

WITH OR WITHOUT

We wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Alone or with friends or family. With or without turkey. With or without. There is always something missing. In childhood that was whatever the parents were allowed to do that we, at seven and four, believed we were missing. As adults there is the glossy image in magazines and …

PROGRESS

On Tuesday, I "won" the National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) challenge by completing fifty thousand words. It needs at least twenty or thirty thousand more words, but I have identified the arc of the story, my two main characters in their parallel experiences, a structure that imposes both tension and order, and some sort of …

SEEING BASALT?

My blog is loaded with mistakes. Misspelled and missing words, usually. I figure most of them out and correct them eventually. Some slide right by for months or forever. Sometimes I might blame auto-correct, but more often it's just my lousy typing. I was reading a personal essay in a literary magazine. The piece has …

CHANGING WEATHER

Lots of new roofs going on lately. We put a new roof on our little duplex rental and it seems to be holding up under the weather. The roofers are busy. It took our contractor six months to get a roofer to do the job. Gary is still picking up trimmings and roofing nails. The …

SIN OF OMISSION

"A man has been arrested after antisemitic abuse was directed towards Jewish children on the London Underground. ... Wearing a cap and hoody, the man is seen in the video threatening a man off-camera after he tries to intervene before a woman in a hijab – Asma Shuweikh – confronts him."—The Guardian The Muslim woman is …

QUOTABLE

“If you think a woman can’t beat Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi does it every single day.”—Amy Klobuchar

PRINCESS

I have tried to stay away from making political comments here. (Readers "unfollow" every time I do.) But Prince Andrew. This is not about the disastrous interview on the BBC where the royal admitted to being "too honorable" but with no memory of abusing a child. I did not watch the interview. I cannot avoid …

DECLINING BOBS

In the satellite photo, there is an ancient white Volvo parked in the driveway and a waterbed tipped up on its edge where both have been for at least a decade. A surveyor was here the past few days, locating property lines and updating contours for the new owner of our neighbor's house. The sale …

NaNo ISSUES

Am I the only one who finds the new NaNoWriMo site clunky, uncooperative, and downright annoying? Communication in forums is impossible (I find nothing when I click that link) and with buddies seems challenging (a message from a buddy waited to be read for a week because I didn't notice it was there). In fact, if this …