Do you think dolls are cute or creepy? Most people fall in one camp or the other. Yet every culture has dolls. Why? My theory is they go back to when a cave woman made one to amuse her kid while she rubbed two sticks together to make a fire. Or perhaps she lost a…
He almost went into the freebie pile. He stands 7 1/2 inches tall. I should say he measures that tall because he can’t stand on his own. His clothes are moth-eaten. His feet look too wide and big for his short legs. Yet there was something about him that intrigued me. Mind you, it took…
If you’ve ever been invited to a surprise party you know the stress of having to get there by a certain time. If you’ve ever hosted a surprise party you’ve done plenty of nail-biting worrying if guests will arrive before the guest of honor and keep their mouths shut. Plus there’s the danger the ruse…
In going through another purge/organization of my home, I found this photo. I have no idea who this woman is. I do know the photo was taken in Kansas City, Missouri, around 1900. I’ve seen her face in a few other pictures but there’s nothing written on the back to identify her. Look at that hat!…
This is the photo I see every time I turn on my computer: my beloved, darling Tucker. We found each other in December 2006 at the Guilford County (NC) Animal Shelter. Sometimes when he meows he sounds like a pigeon and when he snores it’s like an elf wheezing. He rarely conks out on my…
An adapted excerpt from the chapter “Watching a Photograph Slowly Fade” from When I Married My Mother “Are we putting up a Christmas tree this year?” Mama Jo asked when our third Thanksgiving as roommates rolled around. I groaned and was sorry I did. The first year we lived together, after uncovering the ornaments of…
After viewing an MRI of my lower back, I prayed New York neurosurgeon Dr. Ezriel Kornel wouldn’t utter the dreaded word “surgery.” He said, “You have a cyst in the ligaments around your L4 that has to come out.” I visualized a laparoscopic number with a tiny scar and I’d be back home the same…
I’ve just finished John Water’s latest funhouse of memories and musings, Role Models. There’s a spray of pink slips of paper sprouting from the top of it now – markers of captivating passages. I know, I know. With an e-reader you can highlight, search for keywords and deodorize a room at the same time. I’d…
Summer 2011 As another Bachelorette nears its “most dramatic final rose ceremony ever” I find myself thinking back to the Bachelor debut in 2002. Twenty-five beautiful young women vied for the heart of one alpha male. Many weeks later, he whittled it down to one. Kind of like a harem in reverse. I was horrified. I couldn’t…