The Hellish Handbasket

Just over a year ago, I woke up one morning with a new companion: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) or just plain old vertigo. I l...

Earlier this week, I took my maternal parental unit to the dentist for a teeth cleaning. Maybe I should say tooth cleaning. I think she only...

This evening I was sitting in a meeting, reading out loud to a small group from a list on a piece of paper, and I found myself slurring some...

If you've read my blog before, you know I spend a lot of time whining about stuff. As a self-obsessed chronic malcontent, it doesn't...

My sister is in town this week from Boston. She's staying at our mother's condo. We ordered Chinese food from a local favorite resta...

I have epiphanies about as often as I vacuum my carpet, which is to say, about once or twice a year, so when they happen, I try to milk them...

Today I drove my mother out into the country for Cousin Dave's memorial gathering. I took I-84 to US 30 and cut up Newberry Road just pa...

I've been dreaming lately of escape. Hitting the road, leaving it all behind, taking a geographical. Even though I know that wherever I ...

I've only been to Skyline Memorial Cemetery once, with Mom to direct me, some years ago, so I wasn't sure I would find the place. Th...

I dreamed a mildly romantic dream last night. Sadly, though, no tongues to report; I rarely progress that far in dreams anymore. Don't k...

Sometimes when I stand at my computer desk, staring morosely at my screen, my cat sneaks silently into the room and sits on the floor behi...

Happy effing new year, readers. All 10 or 12 of you. I hope this year all your pleasant dreams come true (and none of the nightmares). Me,...

It boils down to this: Do you want to be safe, or do you want to be free? I always thought this choice referred to civil rights and terror...

'Tis the season for giving. A few minutes ago, the phone rang: Planned Parenthood, calling for donations. Dream on, dude. While I was ...

Does it seem these days like we are all going to hell in a hand-basket? Maybe we've been in the hand-basket for a long time (like a few ...

My life is punctuated by drafts of proposals and dissertations that magically appear in my email inbox, demanding my editing skills. Compens...

Humble apologies to all four of my blog readers, who all reached out to me to find out if I was getting ready to jump off a bridge. We have ...

For the past three years or so, I turned to this blog for comfort and solace, the way desperate people siphon the will to go on from therapi...

I root for underdogs. I cheer for the downtrodden. I'm a bleeding heart sentimentalist. I cringe at jokes that make fun of others: I hat...