I found myself sitting next to women my age, or not much older, who were military wives. They came from the Midwest, the South and back East.....Their husbands were off fighting in Vietnam while these young wives held down a job, kept house, took care of the car, called the refrigerator repairman, paid the bills, and tried to stay sane. Read More

I began wearing an anklet when I'd outgrown little girl ankle socks and graduated to cheap mesh stockings in shades of a summer tan, worn over smooth legs. I went to Woolworths and used my allowance to buy my first anklet. My sister and I both wore them, copying one of our beloved aunts who wore a fancy one that had a tiny flower with a pearl in its center, with her name engraved on it. Read More

Parents, we’ve all had these moments, right? Right?? One day my daughter invited a friend from school over to play.  I’ll call this friend Jane, because that is her name. Jane was eight or nine–a year older than my daughter–and since her mom and I were friends, the girls had spent time together before, sometimes… Read More

Oh, it was so great at the beginning. My husband brought home the machine from his office and we went off the the video rental store and wandered the aisles like kids in a candy store. On a weekend, after the kids went to bed, we’d watch movies back to back, remembering to “be kind… Read More

We were looking at a ridiculously expensive cut of meat that we were instructed to stud with truffles, brush with brandy, brown in butter, slather with a mixture of more butter blended with pâté, and finally wrap like a precious gem in a buttery dough. Read More

While gaggles of kids talked and laughed at lunch, I found a quiet corner and savored my solitude as I ate my sandwich alone. Thanks to a thoughtful custodian who unlocked a room for me, I could avoid being seen; I spent my period of exile in silent, and sometimes salty, contemplation. Read More

This isn’t about my fame or lack of it. This is about secondhand fame. To be precise, this is about my father’s famous friend: Carol Channing. My dad grew up in San Francisco, and as a precursor to his eventual career as a drama teacher, he got involved in theater during his high school years.… Read More

Excerpted from my memoir, There Was a Fire Here. October 20, 1991. Oakland, California — There was a fire here. It started high above our house, on a hill facing west. No one knows for certain how it started, but a human hand set something burning and started The Fire. The fire incinerated, it eliminated; it… Read More

1968. High school. Last half of junior year, first half of senior year. Waiting for my life to start for real. Yearning to move on. Falling in love, falling in lust, making some bad choices and a couple of good ones, trying new things, boys on my mind, unhappy at home, hard truths, assassinations, end… Read More

This must be the way things are done here, I thought. No turning back now. So I focused on the ceiling fan as it spun in a lazy circle, thinking about how I would describe this feeling to my friends. Read More