One of my favorite “daddy bloggers,” Jim Griffioen, had an interesting perspective to share on today’s Apartment Therapy. His sentiments were along the vein of my thoughts from earlier in the week on why we write, many of us so very publicly.Continue reading
JD Hancock via Compfight
“There comes a time when it is vitally important for your spiritual health to drop your clothes, look in the mirror, and say, ‘Here I am. This is the body-like-no-other that my life has shaped. I live here. This is my soul’s address.’ ” ~Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World
As a writer, I always struggle with what to share publicly and looking at past posts, this appears to be a recurring theme on this site. In my editing program, one of the last sections of reading in the course pack was an article titled, “Eleven Essential Questions” [on Book Development, excerpted from Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, & Literary Agents, 20th Edition, 2010]. This article was a beacon in the night to someone like me, a writer, almost “official” certified editor, and dabbler in life that wants to share the ups and downs of it with the world, but doesn’t know if there’s relevance in what she’s trying to say.Continue reading
Hello visitor!
I would like to thank you for dropping by my little slice of virtual real estate. In the months since my last post in January, I have successfully (with the aid of my tech-friend Brian) conquered a virus that was causing Google to flag my site as a place a visitor might not want to visit. I found it apropos that the January image on my last post was taken from an alley. Albeit not a darkened one.Continue reading
“Run away from toxic people. Instead, surround yourself with others who are positive, who support you and want you to succeed.” – Tererai Trent
I first learned about Ms. Trent from a program on Oprah Winfrey’s satellite radio station. Ms. Trent is a Zimbabwean-born woman who was pulled out of school to marry at age eleven, birthed three children by age eighteen, suffered abuse at the hands of her husband, moved to America, and later divorced said husband. Trent caught the attention of Ms. Winfrey after being featured in the book Half the Sky, written by Nicholas Kristof and co-authored by his wife Sheryl WuDunn. Trent was honored by Oprah as an example of a person who wrote down goals and later realized each of those goals. Trent’s goals were to: earn her bachelor’s degree, then her master’s, and eventually graduate with a PhD.Continue reading
People always ask me if I am in a book club. I was, years ago, but I found that committing to a book a month that was chosen by someone else took up too much of my time. I loved the monthly get-together & subsequent conversation, but I longed for something co-ed and more open-ended.
Years ago, an AP article in The Times (NY, Seattle? I can’t remember) featured a photo of smiling couple in the foreground and a crowded lecture hall behind them. They met at a series of events geared towards adult learners. Most of them had closed the chapter on their high school and college years, but still considered themselves students of life. Because, let’s face it, some of us aim to learn until the day we die.Continue reading
“Everything I do in life, I do out of sheer joy. I drop my fruit like a ripened tree. What others do with it when I am done, is not my concern.” Henry Miller
I seem to be getting a lot of mileage out of this quote in recent weeks. It was shared with me a couple of weeks ago by a friend on the other side of the country with whom I toss several hundred-word missives back and forth with. His perspective is always appreciated because a) he’s not a woman and therefore does not think like one and b) he’s a heck of a lot less jaded than many of the friends in my immediate sphere.Continue reading
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” –Cicero
Tower of Books in a Salem, MA, Bookstore
I have never been much of a gardener, but I am certainly an avid collector of books. I was entertained earlier this month when I saw a republication of a posting from last year on Apartment Therapy’s 20/20 Home Cure. The post was supposed to be about taming clutter, but in this list of tips for de-cluttering, the author recommends disposing of one’s books. I joined a riot of others as we lit up the Comments section of the piece. Get rid of our books because they’re clutter? What?Continue reading
A woman called up the life and relationships program I like to listen to on satellite talk radio. The caller asked the therapist, Dr. Berman, what to do about the ambivalence she was feeling toward online dating. She described anxiety not only about the amount of mail she was getting from suitors interested in her online profile, but also from the content of many of the messages. Overwhelmed and mad at herself because she wasn’t enjoying the process, she worried that if not heading down the online dating path that there were limited options if she wanted to find a life partner.Continue reading
It is a rare treat to meet an author that has greatly affected how one shapes their views of the world. Though I only discovered Dominique Browning last November, her words have struck a chord and influenced my perspective on life. On Saturday night, I had the pleasure of sitting in the basement of Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle and joining fellow readers and admirers of Ms. Browning. Browning wrote Slow Love – a book just released in paperback and the reason behind Browning’s visit to Seattle – in which she chronicles life after House and Garden, the magazine she edited, is abruptly shut down. After the magazine folded, she struggled not only to get out of her pajamas every day, but also to find her place in the world as an unemployed person. Forced to discover a new sense of self after decades spent as influential member of the literary cognoscenti in Manhattan.Continue reading
