A few evenings ago, when my broken and surgically repaired elbow had healed sufficiently to be able to turn the steering wheel, and I had already driven my car to physical therapy two days before without a problem, I still asked Tony to drive me to my next PT appointment,…
I used to think this question was motivational and even profound: “What would you do if you could not fail?” Now, I hate it. The saying taunts me as if to suggest I’ve somehow forgotten my dream. The dream I’ve held onto with a loosening grip since I was old…
I was in the health food aisle of the supermarket yesterday, amongst the cans of beans, tomatoes prepared in various ways, and pre-made soups, when an unexpected image popped into my head: a vibrant green leaf, made of glass. It was just a fragment, but I thought I recognized it:…
(Part of my writing prompt series for my October 50,000 word challenge) Do you know that commercial for the eyelash growing drug? It’s for people with “inadequate or not enough lashes.” It always makes me wonder, do they mean to say that inadequate and not enough are two different states…
November, as you may be aware is National Novel Writing Month, an idea that has irritated me since I first heard about it. The notion that novels are written by doggedly churning out (crappy) prose to meet a prescribed word count–preposterous! It’s pretty much the polar opposite of what we…
“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…
Some days the empty page is downright hostile. Document1 snarls, you don’t really want to write that, do you? Shrinking under its judgment, I look away from the screen. Cleo is curled on her dog bed next to my desk, her squeaky egg under her chin, half asleep with her…
I am freaking out right now…an excellent place to start: freaking out about my freakout blog. No pressure. I just need to create THE BLOG about living with panic disorder. My mission: to bring comfort and humor to sufferers of panic all over the world and understanding from their…
