The Hellish Handbasket

I took a weekend off and visited Albuquerque, NM, for a reunion with some friends. Traveling was sufficiently stressful to distract me from ...

My maternal parental unit has got the squits. Ever since she moved to to the retirement community, she's been plagued with explosive . ....

As a long-practicing dermatillomaniac, I assess my mental state by how many raw open bloody wounds festoon my cuticles on any given day. A f...

Howdy, blogbots. I'm taking time out of stressing about my mother's impending move to assisted living to reflect on my morning adven...

I've been wearing the same tired old pair of winter shoes for five years. I love my beat-up Merrills. They've taken me through mud p...

I've hunkered in my cave long enough. It's almost spring. Time to do a little networking! If you've read any of my blog posts fr...

A few days ago, as I was scrubbing just the white squares on my black-and-white checkerboard linoleum kitchen floor, I pondered the possibil...

Today as I was holding a dinky flashlight over my landlord's shoulder so he could attempt to rewire the thermostat of my electric heater...

Yesterday was the historic women's march in downtown Portland. I wanted to go, but I had meetings in NW Portland, 2 miles away from the ...

Today is Day 6 of the... what are we calling this? Snowpocalyse? Snowmageddon? I don't know what people are calling it, but I'm sure...

I'm feeling anxious. It's pouring cold rain outside. At 4:00 pm, it's already dark. When winter solstice arrived, I got happy, s...

We are barreling into a new year. This year, I'd really like to put the brakes on. Can we just freeze time before we get to January 21? ...

I don't know what is real anymore, with all the falsehoods flying around the zeitgeist. Americans can't seem to agree on the facts. ...

Each night since the election, Portland's young (mostly white) people have marched in the streets, stopping traffic, blocking bridges, a...

Almost two years ago I started writing a book about helping dissertators get their dissertations approved. Dissertators face many challenges...

Tonight, I'm listening to old Monkee songs, feeling old, decrepit, and irrelevant ( pirouette down palsied paths with pennies for the ve...

A few weeks ago, Mom told me she wanted her mini-blinds cleaned. In her 3-bedroom condo, she has three medium-sized blinds (like 4 to 5 feet...

In honor of the end of summer, I took an extra long walk tonight, hiking around the north and south reservoirs four times. That equals 2.24 ...

Best election season ever, don't you think? Who would have imagined a year ago that we would be astounded by entertainment election tele...