Raised in a Barn: Green Acres
As best I can figure it, my parents bought the Barn when I was not-quite 5. What they bought was a sturdy, shabby Victorian farmhouse, a double barn (two barns… Read more Raised in a Barn: Green Acres →
Honey, I Broke the Kids
Let’s say you have a child, and if you’re lucky enough that she arrives with all the correct bits and pieces–spleen and fingernails and skeletal system–you feel a little like… Read more Honey, I Broke the Kids →
Perfect is the Enemy of Wonderful
I use the phrase “Perfect is the Enemy of Good” a lot, reminding myself that retooling a sentence or a paragraph can mash all the spontaneity and beauty right out… Read more Perfect is the Enemy of Wonderful →
Communal Language: Movie Edition
I sometimes wonder if I’ve done a dreadful, dreadful thing in raising my children to love many of the movies that my husband and I love. My younger daughter famously… Read more Communal Language: Movie Edition →
I Was Raised in a Barn: Cars
I was thirteen when we moved from New York City to Sheffield, Massachusetts. There were many striking differences, but one of the big ones? Transportation. Unbeknownst to my mother, I had been secretly taking the subway to school in the mornings (this meant an additional 15 minutes of sleep, for the bargain price of ten cents a day…yeah, it was a while ago). In the mornings I would run to the IRT station and jam myself and my armload of textbooks in among a zillion of my fellow citizens (this… Read more I Was Raised in a Barn: Cars →
Choosing to be Merry, _ammit
The _ key on my laptop is not working. This has been a trying year. A year ago in November there was the election, about which, perhaps, the less spoken,… Read more Choosing to be Merry, _ammit →
Autre Temps
The photo below is from the Spring, 1957 issue of Bride and Home. The three players are me (in the vermillion romper), my mother (in the jumpsuit, in the middle,… Read more Autre Temps →
The Milestone I Didn’t See Coming
I have two daughters, and one is an actress Because of this, she and her sweetie have worked at the Great Dickens Fair in San Francisco for… five? No, six years. First… Read more The Milestone I Didn’t See Coming →
Madeleine Robins 