All too many days my journal pages are a wastebasket of stuff that tumbles out of my head. But the words count as writing, because there are days when I learn something just by writing. Yesterday the discovery was about my love of purses and tote bags. On Wednesday, while Duncan the Dog was getting…

It’s good that I don’t play poker. I could never decide what to discard and I’d lose my pennies every time. How do I know this? Just look at the folder I carry marked “Revisions.” It’s full of what in card games would be discards, threes and fours, no trumps. (Okay, I once knew how…

One of the funniest things I’ve seen online this week is a video of ducks. These birds were apparently kept in landlocked pens until they were rescued and introduced to a pond. First, they had to be herded into the water by a crew of determined human beings. Once wet, they scrambled back onto dry…

Yesterday was good: I shipped a poetry manuscript off to a likely sounding contest, after finally getting the pagination and table of contents to agree; Ate my favorite bagel, spinach w/cheese, and read the intro to Best American Essays 2007, edited by David Foster Wallace, whose prose always knocks me out with delight; Sat in…

When we were teenagers, my sister, in the spirit of sibling rivalry, told me that no one would ever marry me because of the way I ate hamburgers–the outer edges first, saving the juicy middle for last. I wanted that meaty taste to linger. Eventually, I managed to find a husband, maybe because we had…