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.…

My neurologist recently started me on a drug that’s supposed to help suppress my cursed daily migraines. As with all such concoctions, this one comes with an alarming sheaf of side effects. Among them are weakness, dizziness, confusion, difficulty concentrating, tingling of the hands/feet, weight…

Some people have trouble leaving home. It’s not that they don’t want to see the canals of Venice or the art museum in Des Moines. It’s just that, well, they can’t seem to get out the door without taking everything but the kitchen sink. My…

Because I’m a writer, some people think I keep a journal. Those people are wrong. Despite youthful stabs at diary keeping that never got much past “I wish I hadn’t cut my hair,” I’ve never enjoyed the kind of navel gazing the act seems to…

As much as I like Dubuque, I love to get out of town. Day trips with some kind of loose agenda – a play to see in Spring Green, a book to search for in Madison, a Thai restaurant to try in Davenport – those…

We went out for breakfast the other Saturday at downtown Manna Java. My French toast was delicious, but I had trouble focusing. I kept getting distracted by this woman across the room. She had on the cutest shoes. I’ve never gone up to a stranger…

Almost every morning, I do something really silly. I click on this website, www.bio-chart.com, and see what my bio-rhythms are for the day. Now, I’m an intelligent person and I know this is just for sport, about as accurate as a daily horoscope for telling…

Do you remember the game called Six Degrees of Separation? Wikipedia defines it as “the idea that, if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they…

My friend Lulu (not her real name), who is young enough to be my daughter, had a dismal time recently. She and her husband hosted both sets of their parents for a Christmas Eve meal. She moaned to me later that they didn’t make enough…

A copy of Life magazine from July 26, 1948, landed in my lap the other day, and I read it with glee from cover to cover. It was a gift from my husband’s sister, a peek into life (with a small “l”) from the very…

I’ve been reminded lately by someone near and dear to me that I talk about perfection a bit too much. I guess this makes me a perfectionist, and he wants to know where I got this – um – imperfection. My answer would have to…

I got a really funny letter in the mail last week. Not ha-ha funny, but the kind that makes you yelp in exasperation. Here’s how it began: “Thank you for your recent application for the L.L. Bean Credit Card issued by Barclays Bank Delaware. We…