The Pyrex Tolls For Thee
March 8, 2010 – 12:00 pm | 3 Comments

If you’re coming to my house for a social call, a casual tête-á-tête, a little visit just to say hi, make sure to take note of both your surroundings and your offerings. Bring wine if …

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Brief History of Bun

The care and feeding of the impossibly small

Random Crap Generator

The odds and sods of this and that

The Cancer Chronicles

An accounting of my father and his resident alien

The Chicken Saga

An accounting of my folly with fowl

The Ascent of Boy

Person rearing for amateurs

The Ascent of Boy »

Sometimes a Thing is Just a Thing, and Sometimes It’s Some Other Thing Altogether
March 1, 2010 – 1:41 pm | 7 Comments

Sometimes a Thing is Just a Thing, and Sometimes It’s Some Other Thing Altogether

We have a happy little nuclear family, all things being equal. My husband and I had our son when we were past our rather exciting young adulthoods, and were married seven years before we heeded the call to breed. It allowed us to create a perfect landing spot for parenting: we had fulfilled our craving for adventure in the outside world and we were more than happy to start an adventure in our house, no regrets.

And parenting, despite the fact that parents like to complain, a lot, is the best thing on earth. No amount of sleeplessness, poop, puke, peculiar interests, illness, or chaos theory personified can take away the fact that you love the little dickens beyond any amount you ever conceived. Well, we do, anyway. I suppose there are plenty of families where love is not the over-arching theme, but I’ll continue as if that inconvenient fact isn’t true.

But when we were considering the question “One or More Than One?” we were really, really tired. Skull crushingly, crazy-making, profoundly tired. This remains true, but we’ve either learned to operate under war-time sleep privations, or we were actually even more tired then than we are now, which makes my brain hurt. But since I’m really tired, I’m not sure which it is. Read the full story »

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Dad Tells It on the Mountain
March 1, 2010 – 9:41 am | 6 Comments
Dad Tells It on the Mountain

Dad has been politely nagging me to put this piece “Death Becomes Us” up on The Nervous Breakdown practically before I was a contributor there. In fact, I seem to recall that he also wanted …

Hello Luxury, Goodbye Paradise Part 4
February 24, 2010 – 12:03 pm | One Comment
Hello Luxury, Goodbye Paradise Part 4

We rediscovered our favorite chicken place on the opposite side of town from where it had been a few years earlier. Sayulita is magical like that–things open and close, move with no warning, change and …

Hello Luxury, Goodbye Paradise Part 3
February 23, 2010 – 10:38 am | 3 Comments
Hello Luxury, Goodbye Paradise Part 3

The brochure for Punta Sayulita was left behind in the house that we rented, living in the stack of airport magazines abandoned by previous visitors, and my husband, always on the lookout for a new …

Hello Luxury, Goodbye Paradise Part 2
February 18, 2010 – 1:53 pm | One Comment
Hello Luxury, Goodbye Paradise Part 2

As a private residential community of just 62 exotic and handcrafted homes, this serene Mexican hideaway will also offer its residents a stunning Beach and Surf Club designed by de Reus Architects with an engaging …

Hello Luxury, Goodbye Paradise Part 1
February 15, 2010 – 10:34 pm | One Comment
Hello Luxury, Goodbye Paradise Part 1

A stone’s throw from the allure of Sayulita, there is an unspoiled 33-acre peninsula of lush and tranquil shoreline. Upon this romantic sweep of coast, amidst a tropical jungle thick with wild orchids, mangoes, tamarindos …

Lars Fox, Audio Engineer Extraordinaire
February 2, 2010 – 1:29 pm | No Comment
Lars Fox, Audio Engineer Extraordinaire

Lars Fox, with whom some of you are familiar, just had an interview published in my second home The Nervous Breakdown.
He didn’t win a Grammy the other night, but dammit, he’s got this! Drop …

The Small Naked Drunk Man in the Bottom of My Drawer
January 30, 2010 – 2:19 pm | No Comment
The Small Naked Drunk Man in the Bottom of My Drawer

This morning I found parity while looking, scrambling really, for socks and I found Drunk Hercules instead. Herc is a key chain fob that broke years ago, and at some point shifted his drunkenness out …

A Perfect Day for Hermit Crabs
January 29, 2010 – 9:27 am | 2 Comments
A Perfect Day for Hermit Crabs

Two days ago I drove past a store which has been an anchor of the neighborhood I live in for the last two decades. A sign on the door said that the proprietor, Greg Klaus, …

This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain on TNB. Any Questions?
January 27, 2010 – 4:45 pm | 2 Comments
This Is Your Brain. This Is Your Brain on TNB. Any Questions?

Ever since I’ve been allowed to hurl my musings at The Nervous Breakdown, expanding my readership beyond my usual four, now that I have the potential for an audience of at least five, my brain …

Dear Travel Czar,
January 26, 2010 – 10:40 am | One Comment
Dear Travel Czar,

When we heard that another terrorist attempt had taken place on a plane descending for Detroit on Christmas day, we had just decided to take a trip to Mexico. Immediately I began crunching the numbers …

Being and Oneness with the Apocalypse
January 22, 2010 – 11:40 am | 3 Comments
Being and Oneness with the Apocalypse

A few years ago, I put up a bird feeder in the back yard. I had landscaped everything to verdant idyll, making it a perfect sanctuary for my avian pals, save for the cats. But …

There But for the Grace of God…
January 20, 2010 – 11:04 pm | 3 Comments
There But for the Grace of God…

It’s safe to say that I had very little sense of self-preservation when I was younger. I was plagued by demons, doubts, profound questions about how to live a life worth living, symptoms I’m pretty …

Thanks for the Endless Sausage Party
January 19, 2010 – 12:47 pm | One Comment
Thanks for the Endless Sausage Party

The year that would never end began on January 5, 2009.
We didn’t know then what we know now: we were taking the first steps in a marathon. Had we, things might have been different. We …

Dada á la Dada
January 15, 2010 – 11:20 pm | 2 Comments
Dada á la Dada

I was too much a daughter to my father to know much about his career as a professor of the humanities, other than a few days I went to work with him as a kid.
But …