Category Archives: Writing

Dear Reader, The fan on the porch is gently moving the chime, causing the smallest of sounds, like the empty swings in a park on a windy day. The chime is from last year, a keepsake, a comfort, offered. Some would have put the chime graveside. I wanted it on the porch. Sometimes when IContinue reading “Rumpled Saturday “

Dear Reader, I’ve been flipping through the “record bins” of my early writing lately and found this not-so-golden oldie. It’s from circa 2008, written for one of my undergraduate classes. (Apparently we were asked to write “in the style of” different authors. This was my attempt at Truman Capote??) I’m going to disappear while youContinue reading “Can This Story Be Saved? But Is It Even a Story?”

Dear Reader, Word Raccoon woke me up at five o’clock this morning. I’m beginning to suspect she simply wanted a longer writing day. The little scamp. We spent a few hours at the café this morning, arriving just as they were opening though we hadn’t even noticed we were so early, and somewhere between CokeContinue reading “Four Poems, One Café Table, One Serving of Humble Pie”

Dear Reader, Word Raccoon began working on a poem this afternoon. She was interrupted, but the core of it is there to return to. That’s how writing works some days, doesn’t it? This one is about telling the bees…Well, we wouldn’t be the first to write a poem about that, would we? I think theContinue reading “Telling the Bees”

Dear Reader, Word Raccoon is throwing a hissy fit this morning. She didn’t sleep well, and she has lab work this morning. Fasting lab work. First of all, since she didn’t sleep well, she reaches for the snooze button, but I tell her, “Not so fast.” Which pisses her off from the get go. Then,Continue reading “Bonus PSA Post: Word Raccoon Sans Caffeine”

Dear Reader, I’d been hearing about the book Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman for a while, and by the title alone WR and I firmly filed it under Nope. Then we heard Kendra Adachi mention it on her podcast. While we would not say our reading tastes align (at all, which is fine becauseContinue reading “No to Talking Cats and Pink Crocs. And Yet…”

Dear Reader, I am so proud of Word Raccoon. And of myself, too, for that matter. This is what I would call a non-literature win. WR has asked me to please stop blathering on about Project House Gorgeous, but today’s accomplishment deserves a mention. For the entire time we’ve lived in this house, WR andContinue reading “Breaking the Fifth Wall “

Dear Reader, I’ve been listening to a novel that presented itself to me on Libby: Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen. When I started listening, I didn’t realize it was based on the true story of the Victorian poet Eliza Acton. After I finished the book and logged it in Goodreads, I discovered something even stranger: IContinue reading “The Curious Case of Miss Eliza, Word Raccoon, and Literary Coincidence”

Dear Reader, Now Playing: Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson (obv.)  I am not currently making banana pancakes, but I might. Although strawberry pancakes and bacon sound better. Anyway, it’s definitely in the right register for my happy mood.  So remember how I shared “Rotten Beds” the other day? How I hadn’t realized it was alreadyContinue reading “Making Imaginary Banana Pancakes And Catching Up On Fun Publications  “

Dear Reader, The early morning light on our porch is pink and orange, like Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, the painting thought to be the reason Impressionism was given its name. I wonder whether this is the feeling Monet had while painting, when the world was not quite awake. The weather, and the fact that it isContinue reading “Impression, Sunrise”