Broken Lives Matter

Okay, now I'm just blowing off a little pre-Christmas steam:( Online arguments are stupid. They solve absolutely nothing, because it's too easy for EITHER party to misinterpret what the other party says and be hurt and say "I'm offended by that!" Then the argument ruins everyone's day, and it's just an infantile disagreement based on misunderstanding. Nothing is accomplished that way. Also, when I was walking to a local restaurant to see a jazz musician play, I was fielding off "how you doin'"s left and right. It seemed like all the way there, for no reason that I can imagine, people on the street wanted to impede my progress by chatting:( Talk about a holiday downer. But the defining moment of this tirade came as I was heading home, just at the corner across from my building, which is where a lot of the things happen to me, to be honest. It's mostly just concerning silly drunk men calling me pretty, or having to walk past some one li...

A few years ago, my extremely wise grandmother (who I don't consider "wrong" about almost anything) observed that there haven't been any real Christmas "classics" out for decades. A few years ago, she was certainly right about that! But that all changed last year, when the song "Mary Did You Know", and particularly this performance of it, burst into the public consciousness. I would say that THIS is what a new classic looks like, and it's taken me a while to realize that. It bares no resemblance whatsoever to "White Christmas," or even "All I Want For Christmas". But in a world spinning out of control this holiday season, with consumerism combined with political anxiety and varying opinions on public policy and outlooks that often look staggeringly dire...at last we have a restful, peaceful, reflective moment: I hope you all enjoy, and take as much hope from this single spectacle of love and beauty in a crazy world as ...

Hello! We meet again, at last. After the crushing loss of my sweet, irreplaceable soul mate Michael O' Rourke in 2012 (June 30th at 2:10 in the afternoon; I just happened to look down at my phone the moment the doctors must have 'called' his death, 'cause it's on his death certificate), I stopped writing. It felt for all the world like words had left me. My heart was shattered, my soul was shattered. I felt like I would never write another creative word...and for almost five years, I've been able to ignore the pain of writing's absence from my life. Amazingly, through many, many lonely and sad nights, then a series of profound events that have reshaped me almost from scratch...I've found myself longing to write again; it's always been a part of me. At this point, although I would dearly love to be able to make a living at this comfortable habit, I've accepted that this honestly is a daunting prospect. After all this time and all that has happe...