And how tonight I miss people like small arrows are pricking my skin like anything that is annoying like too much of one thing like when your leg jerks just before you fall. Asleep.

Like they are in a dressing room preparing again for this role, like being my mother… Read full post »

 NOTE TO ALL: I actually truly really did not read Fernsy's post before writing this. I noticed her title and had read a bunch of other stuff over the past few, what, days weeks months. So although this appears to be a response, it isn't! 

It seems like a lot… Read full post »

"Obama is our first black president. He isn't as progressive as "I" would like. Drones are questionable. Is race still an issue? Shut up blackie. "

There, I summed it all up.

Is your blogging way too ponderous,… Read full post »

I hold the port key. I have to do this to make sure OS is actually real again. Plus, it's fun and hilarious. 

The Mennonite Choir or How To Find Yourself Read full post »

Because I was raped, and I got pregnant. 

I was raped in my sophomore year of college. I was at a prestigious women’s college in New York City. I was living in a building 25 blocks from campus and was abducted and raped on my way back… Read full post »

Sometimes it feels like vomiting through a keyboard but apparently we all are doing it. It’s hard to know what you want to say – every word is a transgression towards the worst or the best. We deal in absolutes while writing about vagaries. It always seems like music to me.… Read full post »

When my partner and I moved to Western Massachusetts  from Martha’s Vineyard 10 years ago we were admitting to a bit of a home coming.(Please feel free to make jokes about moving from Martha’s Vineyard to the interior of the state – it was hard leaving the island… Read full post »

So here’s the run down for everyone who missed it. Sally Swift wrote about being almost in the way of a shooter in Philadelphia. Sally is Jewish and said she often goes to the theater with her family on Non-Jewish holidays (this is kind of common knowledge, to me, - that… Read full post »

Being the youngest of four and the only girl, I had my share of nicknames. From “the baby” to just Baby; some other cruel ones too. Groola (gross ugly Alison). My brother Stewart lived to make me cry, I think. Or maybe I lived to make him make me cry. I… Read full post »

The ghost cats walk through the house as if it is the Serengeti and their watering hole exists under the table. They keen like the cries of a baby, masking their intentions to simply break hearts. I want to welcome them but they vanish into the walls… Read full post »

The other night I had a friend over and she spilled a glass of wine. It was late, and my laptop was still on the table, but I had a flash of anger that was beyond the event. Tonight a friend opened a can of ginger ale that , well,… Read full post »

1.) Two BILLION dollars for a baseball team? As my friend pointed out: that's $7 for every person in the US and 35 cents for every person in the world.

2.) The DODGERS? I like that name! Dodging this and that, the curve balls of life, the fastballs of bills.… Read full post »

San Jose, Costa Rica. I walk and walk and walk around in circles, trying to know this place. Sometimes I get it – a park, a monument. I walk up a hill, wanting an experience or a glass of wine.

I enter what I now call the bad man bar. Super… Read full post »

Kitties on opposite knees

snoring like sailors

how come I cannot get up?.

Hummus is not my friend, yo.

White beans good for heart.

Art James weighs in with advice.

Drinking dirty martinis

while doing laundry

Oh no I forgot that load!

Snowfall in Massachusetts

does not yet ne… Read full post »

Year end lists are great. At best, someone’s feelings get hurt and they sob into their champagne glass while we all snicker, knowing they will be hitting the hard stuff within an hour. At worst, you are that person. Either way, here’s a hanky and a cigarette – and a shot… Read full post »

 My brother gave his first homily/sermon on Christmas morning. It was a 10 a.m. service; I was late and the lovely presiding priest was kind enough to say, after the service, that they are used to people attending the 10:15 service (ha ha), and indeed she and Alan were surprised that/… Read full post »

I remember when I got my first fur coat. I was 11, and had gone to visit my father in Scotland. He had recently abandoned our family in favor of the old country - something I didn't mind at the time but now see as a mistake. I liked going to Scotland… Read full post »

Totally big thing I learned, by looking at things and with my own eyes and brains: Cities in Western Mass. that were developed "back in the day", industrial cities, built power lines BEHIND houses, in what we call alleys. God bless them - nobody in those areas lost power - because,… Read full post »

Where did the general put his armies?

Just like the pictures we seem not alike, like an inability to spell a name exactly.

Every time I think I have you I don’t.

Men are like that, you are like men, distant, remote, inscrutable.

I stumble in front of you, little sister, only girl, your first

and… Read full post »

(Quick overview: I work as a counselor/advocate for a program serving people who have been raped and/or are in crisis surrounding the trauma of sexual assault.)

I had a brutal week last week, and I’m a pro. The news from the Rape/Crisis front is often not good, due… Read full post »

 (I got so many wonderful critiques when I shared this the first time - thank you all! And more critique is welcome. So this is my latest revision...)

From the porch I see them all go by.

Kevin with his arms awry, walking fast to the bus. 

The woman leaning to… Read full post »

 There are squirrels in my walls. It's a problem. The squirrels are really bold - not afraid of lazy cats, apparently. I get all "Yellow Wallpaper" at times - because I turn down everything  that makes sound and say "Did you hear that?" half hysterically.

I am becoming Charlotte Perkins Gil… Read full post »

From the front porch I see them all go by.

Kevin with his arms awry, walking fast to the bus. 

The woman sincerely leaning to the early bar, as

if there were wing or wind .

The guy next door hits the punching bag

and looks up in disgust at… Read full post »

The judge at the trial made an amazing statement at sentencing. She asked everyone to agree with the sentence by standing up and saying "Yes". She was obviously horrified by what the prosecution offered, and like many people who never knew Mia, stunned by the significance of a life , a… Read full post »