Patricia Smuggling C4 in Her Hairclip I didn’t blog last week because I was in New York, attending a writers’ conference, catching up with some old colleagues and meeting my new agent. All in all, I should say it was a great week. And it was…although it didn’t start out that way. And that was because I didn’t have a one-quart-sized plastic baggie when I arrived at the security check-in at San Francisco Airport. Note to anyone who hasn’t travelled in an airplane recently: All toiletries must not only be in containers no more than THREE ounces, they should also be secured in a ONE-quart-size plastic baggie. You know, like the … [Read more...]
Darfur
China Please One of the positive things middle-age has brought me, is a keen desire to stay healthy and to consciously go about expediting that goal. And so I do stuff that I never did when I was in my twenties---like going to the dentist and subjecting myself to regular teeth cleanings, which to me, will always feel like someone’s trying to gouge out my heart through my gum line. I won’t even discuss the mammograms and the ‘gyno’ visits, except to say that as bad as they are, they’re still not as bad as the teeth cleaning, because they don’t need to be scheduled every three months. And then, there’s the gym. I go to the gym five-six days per week. Like every other … [Read more...]
On GUILT
In “My Very First Blog” I touched briefly on the subject of guilt and I got an interesting response from one of my readers---”Disgruntled” by name, who left the comment, “Oh, boo hoo---you felt guilty.” Not to be sexist, but I just have a hunch “Disgruntled” is a man and if I’m right, more likely he’s a man over the age of forty. The reason I think this, is that the male of the species does not feel guilt unless he’s six years old. Before that he’s too busy drinking breast milk, being proud of his potty training successes, feeling in charge of his parents and environment, learning his alphabet and emulating the Ninja Turtles (or their 2007 equivalent,) to feel any … [Read more...]
My Very First Blog
I just realized today that it is approximately five years since I returned to the US after having lived in Greece for more than seven years. Gosh, these five years have just zipped by. When the weather warms up like it has, I still miss sitting by the Greek sea, sipping retsina with my friends and eating a feta cheese and tomato salad. I keep saying I will get back there one of these days, but so far, I haven’t done it. At least I can still keep up with my people there via email and cheap internet phone and every once in a while one pops in to send a kid to college here or sell the old property that belonged to the family, or what have you. So it’s not like we’ve lost touch. Still, so much … [Read more...]