When I was working on my memoir 99 Girdles on the Wall, my editor blue-penciled several chapters about the end of my mother’s life.  He said they sounded crazed and angry. Crazed was the word my analyst used to describe me during that time as well.  The legitimacy of anger and crazy feelings aside, I  Read the Rest…

In an effort to prolong the aura of my recent thirty hours in Portland I am writing up notes made over a bowl of beef stew in the Heathman Hotel restaurant.  My former piano student Anna got me a rate at the hotel “where service is still an art” through her work at Rubicon International  Read the Rest…

The other day was stunningly beautiful here in Seattle, a day so fresh, it smelled like both snow and spring.  I stayed in all day, feeling puny but longing to be out of doors.  Today when I feel like a walk, it’s overcast and raining. So I will imagine a walk one mile to the  Read the Rest…

Here in Seattle we implode a couple of sport’s stadiums every few years, and then ask property owners to finance a few new ones.  We vote no.  The stadiums get built and we all pay for them.  I’m a wee bit bitter.  To further delineate myself, let me disclose that I have attended exactly two  Read the Rest…

Now that everyone is talking pretty freely about vaginas these days, I trust no one will mind if today’s subject is bras.  I hate them.  I have been measured and prodded and fitted for them at least ten times.  In 45 years of wearing bras, there was one that was comfortable once for five minutes  Read the Rest…

I invite you to read the 99 Girdles page of this web site.  It’s all new stuff! For the past 4 months I have been working with a free-lance editor in town, Tom Orton.  With his excellent suggestions, I have found a *narrative arc,* re-organized the entire book and re-written much of it, including the  Read the Rest…

There’s nothing like busting open the head of the Blessed Virgin Mary to remind you to slow down.  Here’s what happened:  I was having one of those mornings when I was not in the moment.  There were way too many moments trying to be represented in every in-breath.  I had a chiropractic appointment and a  Read the Rest…