This column comes to you from my bed. People are talking quietly in the hallway. Some overcast light comes in my window, whose sill is stacked with books, DVDs, and chocolates. If I want anything, all I have to do is press a button and…

Sometimes, words fail me. I’ve just seen a movie – one of the contenders for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards – and I don’t know how to describe it. Well, I can think of lots of words. It’s brilliant, searing, moving, suspenseful, captivating.…

I love cloudy days. The greyer the better, and if those clouds began disbursing their rain or snow, all the more cause for rejoicing. I know there is an actual mental health disorder that makes many people depressed when deprived of sunlight – such as…

I am not a big shopper. I’m not one of those women who consider cruising the mall an indoor sport, and I shudder when the pantry gets bare and it’s time for another foray to Food Land. Most of the time, it’s a necessary evil,…

I cannot live without candy. I know this is lame, especially since some famous guy said the same thing about books, which are much more serious and important. But that’s the thing. Candy is fun, and in these dark days (of winter, recession, underwear bombers…

I’m a poet. I write poetry, I read poetry, I have a master of fine arts in writing poetry. My husband even introduces me, every so often, as a poet. Words are important to me – not only what they mean, but their rhythm, how…

Ah, January. The eggnog is gone, the presents are in use, the undecorated tree is waiting by the curb to be hauled away. Situated pleasantly apart from the mania that begins with Halloween and decelerates with Christmas, this first month of the year seems so…

December is the perfect month to be a Doozer. If you remember “Fraggle Rock,” you’ll recall the Doozers. These cute little creatures went about their industrious way, oblivious to the dramas of the larger, fuzzier Fraggles. Doozers were always at work, wearing tiny hardhats, driving…

As I stood on a stool at work today, I started thinking about Mary Todd Lincoln. She was the same height as me, and I wonder how often she had to drag a stepladder over to retrieve a book from a shelf or grab a…

I finally got myself a Facebook page. It’s not difficult, and doesn’t cost a cent. If you don’t have one yet, I can wait while you get signed up. Back so soon? You must be kidding. Because, as my pal Jason wrote after I friended…

Looking through your high school yearbook can be a dangerous thing. If you wrote a poem that’s featured in its opening pages, and your best friend, Gail, wrote all over the book to you, and boys you hardly remember wrote really sweet messages to your…

I had a big disappointment last week. A journal that publishes poetry and fiction and memoir had sent an email to its subscribers. “We need more prose for the next issue! Send us your stories or memoirs by October 15!” I almost ignored it, since…

Lately I’ve been thinking about my ex-husband. The reasons are three-fold: 1) I watched Ken Burns’ series on the National Parks, which included a lot mountains, which he loved; 2) a friend asked me what drew me to him in the first place; and 3)…

“What kind of bird is that?” asked my husband, as I sat typing at the computer. I was busy, but turned to look out the window at the patio. This is where our bird feeders hang – one with regular seed, used mainly by plain…

My daughter used to do the cutest thing. Before she could even speak English, she would sit in her car seat babbling away, holding a spirited conversation with the world as it whizzed by outside the car windows, sounding for all the world like some…

A few weeks ago, my husband and I made a pilgrimage to Spillville, a tiny town near Decorah. I’d just finished reading Patricia Hampl’s wonderful book by the same name, about the summer when the Czech composer Anton Dvorak and his family visited and lived…

We were at a dinner party the other night, and something a friend said made me insanely envious. I asked how she was finding retirement, and she said, with a look both serious and satisfied, “ I’m finding that I do the same things I’ve…

My college boyfriend was rich. Or let me put it another way – he came from a rich family. Just because “your daddy’s rich,” to take line from “Summertime,” doesn’t mean you’ve done a darn thing to deserve those tennis lessons or that Mercedes parked…

I’m sitting in a cabin in Crested Butte, Colorado, surrounded by the most spectacular scenery you could hope to vacation in. We’ve got mountains to the left, mountains to the right, and some of them are even snowcapped, right in the middle of summer. We…

The great American novelist Henry James is famous for declaring “summer afternoon” the two most beautiful words in the English language, and I won’t argue with that. But I think we need to decide where, exactly, is the best place to spend a summer afternoon.…