For ten months we have been steeped in isolation as families, communities, and governments struggle with the ebbs and flows of this generation’s pandemic. Each of us has coped in whatever way we can, wrestling with a demonic assortment of challenges: loneliness (or its opposite, if we’re crammed into an overpopulated or antagonistic household), cabin […]

Minx & Jinx are the hot new “beings” in my artistic palette: a series of witty vignettes featuring two vintage Barbie dolls and inspired by the efforts of Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, a forest ecologist who retrofitted Barbies almost two decades ago to match her academic expertise. She was unable to get any traction for her […]

Recently I’ve been exploring the healing power of meet-us-right-where-we-are, astoundingly powerful music made by female artists, Ordinarily, I have wide-ranging music tastes: R&B, funk, gospel, jazz, classical, country, pop, house, hip-hop, hula, zydeco. Although I maintain several thousand tracks in my iTunes, I haven’t been making good use of my library, because I’ve …[this isn’t […]

In the midst of an otherwise horrid month (and this was before the August Complex wildfire hit one million acres), a pair of new shoes inspired a cogent piece of literary commentary. (You know writers: we see metaphors e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.) Published in Issue 8 of the online journal Route 7 Review, the essay sums up the […]

Five years ago, after a series of traumatic experiences with slumlords-posing-as-nice-people, I decided to stop renting and create my own tiny home. I needed something with wheels that was well-built and affordable, one that would allow me to implement eco-friendly systems including solar energy, water conservation, and a composting toilet. Given my financial resources and […]