Facebook is a world of freakouts, and this is coming from a person who knows freakouts intimately. A few nights ago, for instance, I got no sleep, terrified that the clunk sound outside and the motion detector light in the backyard meant a guy from a TV crime drama was…
“How did you get so good at that?” a woman at the river festival asked me as I twirled a glowing LED hoop around my shoulders. It was a compliment, but I could tell it was also a real question. “Practicing in my backyard,” I said. She backed away, apparently…
Last night, my no-TV-month over, we finally watched The King’s Speech. (Yes, I even banned myself from watching DVDs and yes, we are always culturally behind since we’re too cheap and/or lazy to go out and see a movie in a theater.) Anyway, the film made me think about the…
I know, the proverb goes, comparisons are odious, as in horrible. But Shakespeare’s Dogberry makes it odorous (in Much Ado About Nothing) and I like it. Comparisons are stinky. Indeed, so I’ve been thinking lately. This is a story about hooping, so I will need to start at the beginning,…
I haven’t told W, but I’ve sworn off television for the month of July. Actually, we don’t have TV, per se. We have high speed internet and Netflix and all the free shows that affords a person, which turns out to be enough access to waste a good deal of…
“If the fire alarm goes off, it’s my fault,” I say to my friend Elizabeth. I am holding my tray of food, hovering over a table of my classmates in the dining hall during our MFA residency. “I think my toast is catching fire.” I usually like to think of…
Yes, there are medications for anxiety. Why am I not taking them? A year after my first panic attack, my therapeutic plan was to force myself to drive and continue to get onto highways, the stimulus for my panic attacks. You know, “getting back on the horse.” It wasn’t the…
I don’t want to suggest it’s a good thing W got sick and we had to turn around and drive two and a half hours back home this morning rather than paddling in the race. But it did mean I stepped up, driving-wise. A side note: I also learned a…
When I pull out of the driveway, it isn’t raining, yet. Thunder rumbles in the distance and dark clouds threaten. W says he’ll drive me into town for my therapy appointment but I say no, I’ll do it. I tell myself I can’t be a fair weather driver. Eventually I…
After a leisurely Memorial Day breakfast, we decide to swing by the take-out of our local dam-release river to see if any of our friends might be around to take a run with us. We still have our canoes strapped to the roof rack from yesterday, but all our gear…
