Crazy Like a Fox

I was trying not to go here, but here we are again, right in the thick of a political discussion. Although I would argue — perhaps you would not — that this moment has transcended politics and is now in a different realm. One that could be divided into Reality and Unreality. We are not […]

The Area According to Kara

It’s hard to find help when “affordable” housing starts at $258,000. Kara is my business partner, a very sharp woman 20 years my junior whom I first met when I was teaching a mini-unit in journalism at the elementary school across from the newspaper office. She was in the fifth grade. In the years since, […]

Feed the Birds

KT and Nate Lund lived for many years in Gunnison, all of my formative years, before eventually moving to the Pacific Northwest. I did not stay in good touch with them (nor they with me), and I have been led to believe KT died several years ago from Alzheimer’s complications. While I failed at long-distance […]

Business “Assistance”

Today is Day 166 of Pandemia in Gunnison County, if you care to believe our public health officials. (I would ask, why wouldn’t we believe them, but there seem to be many, including the president of the United States, quick to believe the nuttiest of conspiracy theories, who think for some reason that public health […]

Hazy Shade of Summer

We have one airless, mask-free corner at Pat’s Screen Printing. It’s the corner where the printer (since we’re generally down to one person printing at an given time) has to work. Our building is wrapped by another so we have no back door and thus very poor airflow, and the press sits in the most […]

Motherly Advice

This is an easy sentence to toss out there: “In 1920, women won the right to vote.” But to get there took nine — nine! — decades of activism. And one letter from a mom to her son. When we think of prominent suffragists — [When I conduct coin flips at middle school volleyball matches, […]

Working the Angles

Back in the day, that day being when I was writing fiction, I was always wandering around with a story going on in the back of my mind, even when it wasn’t at the forefront. I was always writing, mentally, even if a lot of it never made it to the page. Blogging has brought […]

Going Postal

Yesterday afternoon I had so many blog topics that I wondered how I would fit them all in. This morning, after another 4 a.m. awakening (thanks for the sleep tips, everyone — I haven’t tried any of them yet, mistakenly thinking that mentioning sleep problems out loud would make them go away), absolutely nothing sounded […]

Sleeping With the TV On

Don’t ask me why, but for the third night in a row I woke up in the wee hours and had trouble going back to sleep. Don’t lecture me, but my solution for returning to sleep is to watch TV. I know; you’re supposed to get out of bed and read a book. What happened […]

Slacking

This is mostly to let you know I am still here, just less organized than usual, if you can believe such a thing. No matter my intentions, I am not likely to find time to fit a post in today. I know I missed Saturday, and yesterday, and really only made it halfway through a […]