D.I.Y. Baby
I like blogs. I like foodie blogs, political blogs, writer blogs, narrative blogs; and I especially like do-it-yourself blogs–blogs with craft tutorials, (step by step pictures are best). With the holiday season upon us, it is easy to watch fistfuls of (hypothetical, credit card) cash fly out the window. The D.I.Y. option will most of the time [...]

Environmentalism, Existentialism, and a Little Bit of Feminism (Just to Spice things Up)
Environmentalism-  Concern for and the effort to conserve our increasingly ailing Earth. Existentialism- Human’s struggle to ameliorate the fact of their existence with the disbelief in a greater purpose and God (The title of Sartre’s book, Being and Nothingness sums it well) Feminism- The interest in and willingness to look at existence through a feminine (or female) [...]

Then There’s the Writing: Three Revisited Notions to Help the Stuck get Unstuck
Lately, I’ve been distracted. The blog, (this blog) has become too much my writerly meat and potatoes. The blog’s immediate gratification of suggested audience, quick feedback and casual commitment has engrossed me to a fault. Meanwhile, on the back burner simmers my bigger project, that laborious, and at times, slow-going process of writing my book. Lately, I’ve [...]

The Harsh “Realities” of Children Stories
1. One of my favorite books to read Rainer these days is Richard Scarry’s Best Stories Ever. The book’s copyright is 1971, passed down from my grandmother’s library to my mother’s to me to my son. The book wears its age terribly. It’s filthy and appears to have been partially eaten. But for all the grime smeared [...]

H1N1 — A Spooky Poem
The paranoia was getting to me; Mounting like the sound of television until I swallowed it down; And it was mine: This quiet, self-conscious hysteria. Swine flu, flu, vaccinations, immunizations, Germ-X Fighting goblins and ghosts no bigger than air no, smaller than air, with inaudible boos. You were a potential threat. You, my potential enemy. You, the potential carrier of a virus that could kill my [...]