This is a story about an increadibly smart, kind man, who is also ambitious and pretentious and reckless and controlling, who dies penniless, without memory, distanced from the pain and troubles of the world, but without true love.

All he wanted in life was security, searched outside himself for it a… Read full post »

The self-deprecating, handsome, reckless Dr. Rhodes arrived in Madison at 11:20 p.m. on a Wednesday night from Chicago by Greyhound bus. He was flat broke.

The interview for the assistant professor position was scheduled for 3:00 p.m. on Thursday. He wondered if his god-given charm would save him the… Read full post »

I have been thinking about why I write, and how it's not really just to be understood; it's to have an interaction, a connection, a dialogue. It's been thrilling to be part of the dialogue here. I will always be grateful that I had the courage to open an account and… Read full post »

_{(This was my favorite experimental project from last year:  a novel written entirely via Twitter.  Hope you enjoy it.)}

The ghost attached itself to the head of a woman weakened from holiday shopping, filling her thoughts with plans of an ultimate escape. 

The ghost whispered, &ldq… Read full post »

If you call something a fact when it's fiction, you're lying.  But what if you call something fiction when it's fact?

Our very generous host of the OS Weekend Fiction Club posted a restriction on participation that the work must be “fiction.”  Now, I understand the overall rea… Read full post »

In June, I graduated with my degree in Acting from a prestigious conservatory school in NYC.  I had auditioned for agents and got called back by ABC, NBC, and the Philadelp… Read full post »

I have been following the work of Professor Jamie Pennebaker for a few years now.  He’s a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin who studies writing and healing.  One of his basic premises is that the act of writing about traumatic events helps to heal the writer.  Ano… Read full post »

Many years ago, I went to see Kurt Vonnegut speak in a huge auditorium.  He was articulate but distant. Oh, how I loved those books as a teen, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five and the whole lot of ‘em. They were a secret kind of knowledge about the world, the way… Read full post »

A few weeks before my father passed away, only days after he had entered the best nursing home our limited budget could muster, I went to visit him, and something was wrong.  Very wrong.  He wasn’t there.  I mean, his body was there, but HE wasn’t.

He had been diagnosed with… Read full post »

We are in the middle of renovating our kitchen.  I should be in heaven.  I am in hell.  I should be grateful that we are able to take on such an endeavor in this economy.  Instead, I am questioning my marriage and the meaning of home and the symbolism of a… Read full post »

I want to be drunker than I am.

I went to an American national neighborhood night out tonight, and heard all the gossip about the people that live near me.  The people who have lived around me for 1 or 20 years.

I heard… Read full post »

I am troubled right now about the predominance in my life of smart, sensitive men whose company I otherwise enjoy, but who suddenly spurt out sexist remarks in the middle of pleasant and entertaining conversation.

This happens, for the most part, at social and informal moments in my… Read full post »

As an armchair cosmologist, I can’t help but meditate on the recent news that scientists for the first time have witnessed, via satellite, the radiation signature of a star being pulled apart and “swallowed” by a supermassive black hole.

Dear readers, many of whom are working away at novels or larger scale projects, in addition to the short sweet blogs and flash fictions and lovely poems we share here, allow me to provide a status update of my yet untitled novel.

I’ve actually got about 5 titles, and the most… Read full post »

When I first saw him, it was only in profile.  He was so engaged with his work, he didn’t even turn to see me for many weeks. I was 23 years old, which seems impossibly young now to be making such a large life decision.

He has a wonderful, classical… Read full post »

This was my first post, November 24, 2010 originally named:

Expanding and Contracting Universe

It recieved 1 rating and 1 comment from David in the Atl.  It was hard to follow up on and made me question if my original intent to comment on science news was the right approach… Read full post »

Seven days from now, my marriage will be “convalidated” by the Catholic Church.  My son is getting baptized...something that regular Catholics usually do at infancy.  But we aren’t regular Catholics.  In fact, I am not sure I’m a Catholic at all.

My husband is Ca… Read full post »

One of my core values is a belief in the necessity, integrity, and joy of creative expression, for everyone.  I believe that everyone is creative, although some people truly excel at it, and can create master works of art, and they… Read full post »

I believe in one God,
the Father almighty, (Universal Consciousness)
maker of heaven and earth,  (Plants, animals, and all inanimate matter)
of all things visible and invisible. (The universe, known and unknown, particularly advancing now here on Earth with the help of Hubble Space Telescope and Pa… Read full post »

People have been eating and drinking and doing unusual things to alter their perception for as long as we can tell.  What is this drive to want to get inside, or outside, of us, to alter our sense of reality?

I loved the 1980 movie “Altered States.”  Cable TV and movie… Read full post »

Firstly, let me humbly confess I’m an Adult Child of Alcoholics, and probably an early-mid stage alcoholic myself, although I’ve been stringing that along for a number of years by periodic (sometimes years) of abstinence and controlled drinking and substitute drugs (mostly legal).  I… Read full post »

A little while ago, I was at a Little League game with my Droid Eris phone.  I checked the spotlight on the Google News feed, looked at Open Salon and read some stuff to comment on later (log-ins are annoying on my Droid), made a quick pass to Edge.org, and finally… Read full post »