Through the bus window, through my own reflected image, the solitary lights in the rural landscape were comforting. And exciting. Tomorrow was Election Day, and each light represented at least one potential vote. That was an astonishing notion, which I had never before focused on — the collective power of democracy, and it made you…
Read More
Suprise Me
Too Young to Be Afraid
Prompted By Politics
/ Stories
Through the bus window, through my own reflected image, the solitary lights in the rural landscape were comforting. And exciting. Tomorrow was Election Day, and each light represented at least one potential vote. That was an astonishing notion, which I had never before focused on — the collective power of democracy, and it made you…
Read More
A Cautionary Tale
Prompted By Hitchhiking
/ Stories
I didn’t know Maria well. She was a senior and I, a freshman, in the autumn of 1970. She was thin with a puff of blonde curls surrounding her pleasant face. We had mutual friends and we were driving to one’s house at the western end of the Mass Pike late one Saturday evening, exactly…
Read More
Fear and Loathing in Hollywoodland
Prompted By Drugs and Alcohol
/ Stories
I usually begin my day with a cup of coffee and a microdose of psilocybin. A microdose is defined as 80 micrograms of the carefully grown and prepared mushroom. I also take a dropper full of lion’s mane, a mushroom that, like psilocybin, has restorative properties in the cognitive realm. Eighty micrograms is a holistic…
Read More
Cheap Lodgings
Prompted By Hotels, Motels, Inns, and Hostels
/ Stories
Of all of the cheap places we stayed when my husband and I took an eight-week trip to Europe and Israel, Victor Mattace’s pensione was the worst.
Read More
My Computer Life, BC and AC
Prompted By Life Before Computers
/ Stories
The End of the World
Prompted By 9/11
/ Stories
Looking back at August-September 2001 brings to mind the opening of A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The two weeks prior to what we now just refer to as 9/11 contained some of the best times of my life, and then, of course, the…
Read More
Cinderella at Jersey Girls State
Prompted By Leap Day
/ Stories
Problem number one: I had no boyfriend and, although I was 17, I had never been on a date.
Read More
2026 McGraw
Prompted By Can You Go Home Again?
/ Stories
2026 McGraw Leaving Manhattan recently on a wintry Friday afternoon we hit rush hour and my husband turned off the highway to avoid the heavy traffic. We were taking a detour through local Bronx streets when I realized we were about to pass my old neighborhood, and we decided to drive down my old…
Read More
No Choice
Prompted By First Day of School
/ Stories
A five-year-old does not think about choices and, of course, she hasn’t any.
Read More
The Wurst of Times
Prompted By Retirement
/ Stories
First there was the retirement that wasn’t, observed by many, and then there was the retirement that “was”, observed by almost no one. And midway between them was a short-circuited retirement, a retirement that “wasn’t” also observed by almost no one. The end.
Read More

