Education of an impostor
At sleepovers, I deconstructed entire linen closets. I would sneak into the hallway, a child prowler working by nightlight, and seek out the towels, fabric-softener-fresh mounds of richly hued terrycloth, thick and plentiful. At home our towels were hodgepodge and pale, thin and stained. Inexpertly folded. We put them in haphazard stacks, shoved them in the bathroom cabinet or never even bothered to put them away, passed the spinach souffle over them at the dinner table. I observed the technique of those in the folding-know, took the stacks apart, unfolded and folded until it became second nature. The trick was to fold the towels evenly in thirds lengthwise, then fold the result in ha

Join one sentence with another
For about eight months now, I've been taking a course at The Writing Salon called the Round Robin. Once a week the instructor, Jane Underwood, sends a class email with that week's writing prompts and partner assignments. Every day, for no more than twelve minutes, my partner and I each write on that day's prompt,

Marked by heavy hands
The world you’re plunked into is the one that will hold. Certain odors will stick: melted cheese transformed into a crisp filagree along a sandwich edge; stewed tomatoes, metallic as tarnished silver, bleeding into a wedge of macaroni and cheese. Smoke spirals from a cigarette, a dark-haired Bob Barker waits with a sanguine smile as the announcer orders another contestant to “Come on down!” In the warmth of her grandmother's bed, a little girl watches To Tell the Truth, the air conditioner stopping and starting in the humidity of an Eastern Shore afternoon.

Diversionary tactics
Don't be disturbed by the photograph. It is only a diversion. In fact, I actually posted it a couple of weeks ago and then removed the post. I had nothing to say and the photograph wasn't adding to the conversation. Today it appears as filler, a little piece of San Francisco scenery. Or maybe it works as metaphor, too, though as a metaphor for what you'll have to be the judge.Last night I was walking home from my food writing class, feeling energized and full of something (beans? ideas? hope for the future?) when I realize

Beware of Estonians bearing basil *recipe not included
Peter was only after the blender. I was working in the college bookstore, propped up on a stool behind the register, when he came in to buy something small, a pack of gum, a used book, a cassette tape, I don’t remember. As I passed his change over the counter, brushed my fingertips across this stranger's calloused palm, Peter said “I know you from the newspaper. You told it like it was.”A month earlier I was one of five or six people chosen to answer a question fo