Suprise Me

I was an exuberant reader, often reading by flashlight under the covers when I was supposed to be sleeping. I heard my 3rd grade teacher telling someone in the school hallway that I tested at a 10th grade level at that tender age. I loved “girl” books and there were plenty in my household, hand-me-downs… Read More

The first day on campus can be fun and scary at the same time Read More

There was a time when I unleashed my creativity and started making stuff cause what I wanted to wear was not available in stores. It caused me to dabble in all sorts of crafts. For starters there was leatherwork.There’s a certain confidence gained when you make your own shoes. Just get some materials, trace your… Read More

A Saturday in April. Sophomore year of college. Three days later Nixon would invade Cambodia. Less than a week after that, four students would be killed at Kent State, and the Harvard campus would go out on strike for the second spring in a row. But all that was still ahead, and at this point… Read More

In the fall of 1974 I arrived as an incoming freshwoman at Mills College in Oakland, California. We were each assigned a “zipper,” an upperclasswoman who helped orient us to the college, the Bay Area, and the particularities of language in the heyday of feminism. My college essay included something about how comfortable I expected… Read More

I had already told the “powers-that-be” that I was pregnant, would work several more months, but not return after I had my baby, when the rumors of lay-offs began swirling in October, 1988. I sauntered into Barry’s office. I had worked for him some years earlier at a great sales job (he had fought to… Read More

My marijuana story starts with a woman named Martha Lupton Schneidewind. She was my high school journalism teacher in West Covina, Calif. – a tall, birdlike woman who wore wool suits and ladylike scarves and had a quick, scampering walk. She was kind, loquacious and, to my insensitive teenage self, amusingly absurd with her chirping… Read More

What happened when a new principal tried to impose a dress code in a high school where the students were not inclined to follow anyone else's rules. Read More

Grammy Brown taught me how to file my fingernails with an emery board. She made peach pie. She always smelled just a tiny bit sweet, just a tiny bit cinnamony, just a tiny bit powdery. If soft had a smell, it was Estee Lauder. Read More

  I have been given such gifts words choke in my throat as I reach, I stretch, bend and shake toward expressing the utter astonishment the deep wonder the overpowering gratitude at this moment I am  awake Read More