The most important story I've ever written

It's an in-depth investigation of Miranda's Rescue,  which is under fire on suspicion of animal cruelty, torture, fraud, and more. I am proud of the work that was done on it, and very honored to be in Alta. 

Merchant's

 

Portland, 2011

That time we attended the 24-hour play at a former school.

The summer of trains

Mindfulness Cards

Recognizing how the natural world and the human-made world are intertwined can bring great joy and appreciation. When we take the time to see nature in the environment around us, it opens us up to a sense of wonder. Take some time to explore your surroundings and look for nature in unexpected places -- a tree, a bird, a flower, a gorgeous sunset, a drop of rain. Once you train your mind to se small moments of beauty, you can cultivate moments of joy in everyday life.

Yay Wegovy!

I'm down to 128.9 pounds. The lowest I've been is 124.7, and that was before I switched to the pill and proceeded to gain 10 pounds from re-titrating. Both my sweater and leggings today are size extra smalls. I went to yoga yesterday and it felt great. 

I'm trying. And to a definite degree, I'm succeeding.

Mindfulness Cards

When we engage with everyday objects, we can choose to look deeper to appreciate the incredible world behind the object. Every product, service, or experience that makes up our lives -- from the food we eat, to the products we purchase, to the streets we walk upon -- exists because of the work, commitment, and love of hundreds, sometimes even thousands of people. This is the true internet, the network of human beings who either directly or indirectly have made life as we know it possible. Pick an object today that you've never considered closely and take a moment to reflect on all the energy that went into its existence. May the appreciation flow.

Point Arena, 2019

 

"Mindfulness Cards: Simple Practices for Everyday Life"

There is so much beauty in the delicate. Butterflies, snowflakes, the little dandelion seeds that float along in the summer breeze. Spend a few hours intentionally moving through the day with that same delicacy, engaging fully with the reality of the world around you, with an attitude that is more like a feather than a brick. Notice how it feels to approach the world with such lightness.

In the batting cage

 

Bob Marley, "Redemption Song"

 Old pirates, yes, they rob I

Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Whoa! Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them-ah can-ah stop-ah the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Yes, some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
All I ever have
Redemption songs
These songs of freedom
Songs of freedom

Delta King, Sacramento

 

Mindfulness Cards

When we're watching TV, at a movie, or using our devices, we tend to focus on what it is on the screen rather than the screen itself. Next time you're watching something on a screen, try including the screen itself as part of what you see. Notice what it feels like to include the screen in your viewing experience. This simple practice is a powerful metaphor for how our minds can get sucked into the content of our thoughts rather than taking a bigger view and looking at the nature of our awareness itself. 

Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Nightingale Song"

We sing the nightingale song alive
Streets never border further than my eyes
We sing the nightingale song alive
We might be different but our hearts won't lie
And little ever changes if anything at all
But the song rings loudly through these halls

Mindfulness Cards

On Kindness:

We can be really hard on ourselves. To balance feelings of self-criticism and unworthiness, it is really important to remember that fundamentally, we are actually on our own side. A good way to do this is to develop gratitude for yourself, recognizing that so much of what you do, you do for your own good -- even if it doesn't always work out in the way you expected. Take a few minutes today to close your eyes and thank yourself, because you're doing the best you can.

On Rest and Balance:

Doing nothing is a wonderful way to cultivate calm. And while it may sound paradoxical, doing nothing actually requires a fair bit of effort. Take 10 minutes today to step away from the usual hubbub of your life. Let yourself settle in to doing nothing, giving whatever energy and momentum is around you the space to run its course instead of engaging and giving it more fuel. By staying steady and letting everything run out of gas, you can start to notice what remains once the dust has settled. Rest with it.

On Insight and Awareness:

Cultivating insight is all about understanding the connections between things. But before you can understand connections, you have to see them. Whenever you see something interesting happening in your experience, practice looking for related connections. For example, if you're distracted by something while you're working, try recalling what emotion you felt just before the distraction. Or, when you feel a sensation in your body, notice what distinguished the sensation from all the sensations you don't normally notice. This practice of noticing will illuminate the connections between your mind, body, and experiences.

On Curiosity and Joy:

The connections and pathways in our brains change over the course of our lives based on how we think, what we do, and where we are (scientists call this neuroplasticity). In other words, our minds and our brains are constantly being trained. When you cultivate awareness, you can make a choice to have more control over what qualities you develop in yourself. Knowing this, what do you want to train your mind in right now?

Assistant coach and beloved player

 

"Mindfulness Cards: Simple Practices for Everyday Life"

As you deepen your mindfulness practice, the question of who and what it is that is aware of all this experience starts to become more and more prominent. If we are aware of our thoughts, then we can actually be our thoughts. Who knows? Spend 5 minutes siting with this question and pay attention to what comes up in your mind.

Elan and Baz

 

All I've managed to write today

I’m watching the stricken trees as the train pulls into Prague’s main train station. They are a copse of corpses, thin and blunted by the wind that doesn’t stop shrieking. I’ve picked quite the day to make the hourlong trip from Pardubice. You don’t fuck with an Eastern European winter. I learned this too late.

Go Reds!

 

Oingo Boingo, "Just Another Day"

But there's a smile on my face,
For everyone
There's a golden coin,
That reflects the sun
There's a lonely place,
That's always cold
There's a place in the stars,
For when you get old.

From one of my clients/friends

This has been very important to me. I’m so grateful for writing and for you for helping me. 

Great therapy session

Bethany is a genius! 

Spending my morning researching Pardubice

I once lived there, but not for eons. Another lifetime. 

More Ahoj

More than anything I want coffee. “That is not a problem. We’ll find you a place.” He steers me down the street and around the corner and there you have it: Wenceslas Square, a wide expanse marked by a memorial toward the top of its slope. “This is for Jan Palach,” Jaroslav says. “He protested by setting himself on fire.” 

For a minute, I can see it, hear it, feel it, smell it: the crackling, the burning. What is the last thing you feel when flames are surrounding you on all sides? What do you think about? What do you wish for? Most of all, do you have regrets? I don’t. 

But I’ve never burned to death. 

“Here,” Jaroslav points to a second-story window. “Coffee.” 

Dunkin’ goddamned Donuts. He must assume that an American would be drawn to it. Well, whatever. Beggars, choosers, and me.

From AHOJ

I’m leaning toward going. No real ah-ha! moment here, only facts nudging me closer to inevitability. My mind acts as the lawyer presenting a closing statement: ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the accused has no job, no money, no real way of getting by here in the States. Moreover, she has no boyfriend, so she’s not even getting laid. In summation, I suggest she keep her bags packed.

Random

Marcus just told me that Groucho Marx and Alice Cooper were friends. Who knew?

Prince, "Cream"

You've got the horn, so why don't you blow it?

2017

Michael took this at my birthday party. I'll give him this: he could take a picture.

Today's mood

 

52

And glad to be alive! I feel very happy right now. 

Current view:

It's our 18th wedding anniversary!

Yay! (There's so much more to say, but that will suffice.)

Mendocino, 2014

 

Truth

The only way out is through.

South Lake Tahoe, this week

 

Jenner-by-the-Sea, 2016

 

Ugh!

I thought I was done writing about this in Bearded Lady. Apparently not. Yes, I'm vaguebooking. Sue me.

Texting with Marcus

HIM: You shall be forever balancing parenthood and the rest of life. And chafing against the tensions thereof.

ME: Thank God. I'm serious. And I speak as someone who gets driven nuts by a 10-year-old on the regular.

HIM: Thank Her for what? (That was just to look woke.)

ME: I've realized I will chafe against life's tensions whether they exist or not ... I seem to be that kind of person. Might as well have a little mini-me.

HIM: WAIT TIL TEEN. Yeah, that's a great attitude you have. Truly. Despite my hoo haa.

The dream

In the dream, Adam asked for a divorce. Actually, he didn't so much ask as demand. It was one of those dreams that just picks back up after you've awoken, sweaty and scared, to a breath of relief. 

For the record, this has never happened. When I've gotten pissed at him, I've used the d-word. I haven't done it for a long time.

Oh, and he'd already started dating someone else. What the?

The Killers

 Are we human, or are we dancer?

From Conflagration

Lilith grew up to the tune of the sirens, that wailing wind, but never got used to them. That was easily half the reason she left – she couldn’t take the idea of the already half-destroyed city being chipped away around her. Sometimes you leave what you love because seeing it decimated hurts your heart, your being. You would rather be without it than let it be without itself.

What it sounds like to work with Adam in the room

"The range doesn't cover the stability specification."

"They didn't even calculate the range. They just did it based on sample."

"When I try to put in the numbers ..."

This song always makes me cry

 

Facebook Official for 11 years

 

More truth

I'm scared to go home. I'm not ready for real life. An overnight isn't enough. Sometimes I think no amount of time would be. 

The Last Time I Saw Richard

 

Santa Cruz

I took the train and bus down here, definitely still noticing my anxiety. Instead of succumbing to it, though, I'm just watching it, seeing where it goes, where it takes me, where it intersects with me. All this meditation shit I'm doing is not for nothing. 

Photo taken at Emeryville Amtrak before I left.

Reconciliation

Two years since I've spoken with my father. Almost three. My mom and I got it together before she died. I don't know if this will be the case here. I don't know if I can point a finger (abuse, neglect) when I called him a motherfucker and told him the wrong parent died. I just don't know.

Little League

 

San Francisco Writers Conference

 

St. Louis, 2012

 

The boys

 

Marcus

As I say, you’re the most extroverted introvert this world has ever known.

A '90s anthem

Would she go down on you in a theatre?

San Francisco Writers Conference

I'm on faculty, so stop by and say hi! 

Flash Fiction on the Danube!

I am thrilled to be an Author Host on a river cruise down the Danube from March 31-April 7, 2027! Cruise over here for more info!

Revising CONFLAGRATION

I'm not a crier. Still, I'm sitting at Roast & Toast, editing, revising, playing with the chunks and blocks of text, and all I want to do is lie down and sob.

Eleven years ago

I found out I was pregnant.

Best news ever.

Back through time

I co-led a tour of John Muir Elementary School, where Baz goes, this morning. I felt like I was walking backward through his experience: here's Room 9, where he goes to fourth grade with Ms. Rosenthal. Here's Room 3, where he had third grade with Ms. Iglehart. There's Room 5, Ms. Hong. And on and on. Ultimately we were at Mr. Tomavi's class, kindergarten.

"The fourth graders are coming to read to our class today," he said.

"Say hi to Baz."

"I do most mornings."

He has decided he is a frat boy. My kid. Wonders never cease. 

Brenda's French Soul Food, Oakland

 

Today's writing

If someone had told me what to expect from life, I would have wrinkled my forehead hard. I might have bitten my lip, and certainly I would have wondered how I could have wriggled out from under Father Fate. But there is no such chance. We are written, inscribed, in the Book of Living, and that ink is invisible to all but the author.

"That time I went to Boston"

That's one way to put it, babe. Another way to put it was that we had just started dating and you went back to see your ex-girlfriend.

Sometimes the past still pisses you even, even two decades gone. 

Rachel Louise Snyder on Renee Good

"That 'dude' was a peace offering, a reaching out to show we’re not like those other women, the kind who don’t know about cars or home repairs. We’re not weak or uncool. We’re not hysterical or overly emotional. We’re not into drama. No. We’re just like you, dude."

Read it here. 

Dave Matthews, "Crash Into Me"

You've got your ball, you've got your chain
Tied to me tight, tie me up again
Who's got their claws in you my friend?
Into your heart I'll beat again

Sweet like candy to my soul
Sweet you rock and sweet you roll
Lost for you, I'm so lost
For you

Oh, when you come crash, into me
And I come into you
And I come into you
In a boy's dream
In a boy's dream

Touch your lips just so I know
In your eyes, love, it glows so
I'm bare-boned and crazy
For you

Oh, when you come crash into me, baby
And I come into you
In a boy's dream
In a boy's dream

If I've gone overboard
Then I'm begging you to forgive me, oh, in my haste
When I'm holding you so girl
Close to me

And you come crash into me, baby
And I come into you

Oh, hike up your skirt a little more
And show the world to me
Hike up your skirt a little more
And show your world to me
In a boy's dream
In a boy's dream

Oh, I watch you there through the window
And I stare at you
You wear nothing but you wear it so well
Tied up and twisted, the way I'd like to be

For you, for me, come crash into me baby
Come crash into me, yeah, yeah
Crash into me
Crash into me
Crash into me
Ooh-whoa, ooh-whoa

I'm the king of the castle
And you're the dirty rascal, crash into me
Just crash away baby

Oh no, the less I see the wave come and crash into me
I see the wave come and crash into me
Crash into me (oh, oh, oh, oh)
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey
Da, da, dum, dum, hey, yeah
Da, da, dum, dum, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Memphis, 2012

 

First picture of us together

My 30th birthday. Adam got way drunk. Chaos ensued.

Mindfulness Cards

It is sometimes said that our increasingly digital lives disconnect us from being physically present in our bodies. But this is only true if we allow ourselves to disconnect. A simple way to sty connected while you're online is to bring your attention to how your hands and fingers engage with your devices. Observe what the sensation of typing feels like. Feel the weight of the phone or tablet. Notice the different textures you experience, from the smoothness of the screen to the hardness of the buttons. By paying attention to your physical experience of technology, you can become more physically present.

The boys

Purple Rain

I remember dancing with Baz to this song the day we found out Prince died. 

Question Seven

I only counted six questions. Maybe I'm missing something!

Happy New Year! Shit in the world is crazy right now, and I hope you're hanging in there, whoever you are. 

Question Six

Is there anyone you need to forgive in 2026?

Yes, and I'm not saying who.