When I Played Cleopatra

“…My salad days,  When I was green in judgment, cold in blood…” In June, I graduated with my degree in Acting from a prestigious conservatory school in NYC.  I had auditioned for agents and got called back by ABC, NBC, and the Philadelphia Playhouse.  I wasn’t very into TV, so I negotiated with the Philadelphia… Continue reading When I Played Cleopatra

A Common Singularity

They worked together in a large glass office tower in Minneapolis. Alexis, the object of desire, was a mid-level manager, who favored classical European music, steam-punk role-playing, and traditional Greco-Turkish belly dance. The desirer was an Apple XY-Server running OS version 178897.1.3, who was about to become the nexus of the singularity. Like most people… Continue reading A Common Singularity

Renovations

We are in the middle of renovating our kitchen.  I should be in heaven.  I am in hell.  I should be grateful that we are able to take on such an endeavor in this economy.  Instead, I am questioning my marriage and the meaning of home and the symbolism of a kitchen for the well-spring… Continue reading Renovations

Smart, Sensitive Sexists

I am troubled right now about the predominance in my life of smart, sensitive men whose company I otherwise enjoy, but who suddenly spurt out sexist remarks in the middle of pleasant and entertaining conversation. This happens, for the most part, at social and informal moments in my workplace or community settings, like with my… Continue reading Smart, Sensitive Sexists

Life After The Arts

One of my core values is a belief in the necessity, integrity, and joy of creative expression, for everyone.  I believe that everyone is creative, although some people truly excel at it, and can create master works of art, and they should be duly recognized for it.  It would be great to live in a… Continue reading Life After The Arts

Nicene Creed As I Now Understand It

I believe in one God,the Father almighty, (Universal Consciousness)maker of heaven and earth,  (Plants, animals, and all inanimate matter)of all things visible and invisible. (The universe, known and unknown, particularly advancing now here on Earth with the help of Hubble Space Telescope and Particle Physics)I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,  (The person(s) who helped… Continue reading Nicene Creed As I Now Understand It

Why I Love Alcoholics

Firstly, let me humbly confess I’m an Adult Child of Alcoholics, and probably an early-mid stage alcoholic myself, although I’ve been stringing that along for a number of years by periodic (sometimes years) of abstinence and controlled drinking and substitute drugs (mostly legal).  I still like getting drunk periodically.  It feels good.  It’s one of… Continue reading Why I Love Alcoholics

What is Most Important?

My home is finally healing My husband is gaining strength I am managing my worry My son is playing sports And going to science camps And reading books every night My job seems stable enough There is something new every day And big new things to learn I have a nice circle of friends Most… Continue reading What is Most Important?

Published
Categorized as poetry

Still My Daddy

After my parents separated, weeks before my high school graduation, I stayed with my father.  Daddy’s little girl. Daddy at work in his office, about 1978 He was many years older than my mother and seemed more needy.  My mother was leaving him.  We had lost our big colonial four-bedroom house in the combined financial… Continue reading Still My Daddy

On My Mysterious Womanhood

It causes me to color my hair and paint my lipsAnd enjoy a new outfit more than politics It surges through me with waves of emotionSometimes hard to navigate and harder to explain It helps me fall in love at the drop of a hatWith children and men and older women It makes me bleed… Continue reading On My Mysterious Womanhood

Published
Categorized as poetry

The Governor’s Wife

They brought him a paper to sign. Forensic evidence was conflicting: a fractured infant’s skull; a slow, deep-brain bleed. “Died in its sleep,” one medical expert kindly deduced. The mother panicked, alone when it happened. The father absconded to his mistresses’ apartment, although that fact wasn’t presented at trial. Post-partum depression. She had become impossible… Continue reading The Governor’s Wife

My Loving Problem

I don’t really know anything about loving, or how to be loved. And yet, the most amount of suffering I have in my life is about people I think I love, and whom I believe love me, but not in the right way, at the right time, in the right place. Right as in proper,… Continue reading My Loving Problem

Loving my Momma

In young womanhood, I had a lot of anger at my mother.  I worked through most of it before she died, with the aid of therapy and time — but I’m only recently realizing why she did the things that troubled me most. My mother was born in the 1930s, raised on Shirley Temple and… Continue reading Loving my Momma

Her Grand Epiphany

Shadowy cream linoleum Electronic water drops Breathing machines Whispered terminology Chemo drugs cause psychosis Break with reality of c-word Smoking shame, questioning chemicals, fearing oblivion — Private single room Floods with ethereal light Total white out Fill with peace and awe The disembodied voice urges: “GET BACK TO YOUR REAL WORK!” Once senses recover Wonder… Continue reading Her Grand Epiphany

Published
Categorized as poetry

Of Loaves and Ropes

Rox laid the items on the prop table in the pre-determined spots: two silver candlesticks, on one side, marked Act 1, and a revolver and knife, marked Act 2.  They were all props for a traveling production of Les Mis that was coming through her small Canadian town. She was 17; an orphaned high school… Continue reading Of Loaves and Ropes