When you’re a kid, and later, if and when you’re a parent, you sometimes hear the term “bad attention.” As in, “We know you like attention, Lochinvar, but setting Mary Lou’s braids on fire will only get you bad attention.” Bad attention: the sort of attention that goes down in your permanent record, that possibly keeps you out of a job or the college of your choice, the sort of attention that maybe comes with media attention and perhaps a lengthy jail sentence. There are those, I know, who believe that… Read more Bad Attention →
There was a day, a few years ago, when I was walking Emily, the household dog, across the overpass that spans the highway near our house. We were on the far side, starting down the ramp to the sidewalk, when I observed a middle-aged woman on the street below us. She was walking her dogs, two affable looking German shepherds. When one of them stopped to do what a dog stops to do, the woman picked up the leavings in a plastic bag, as one does. And then she did… Read more The World is Full of Small Weird Miracles →
Once Upon a Time, I worked with a man who did not believe in fiction. He admitted its existence, he just didn’t get it. In every other particular, Justin was a lovely man: charming and funny, sharp as a tack, and very successful. He was visually handicapped but a huge consumer of the written word. But what he liked to read were how-to books, essays, commentaries on real estate law, history–things factual. “Fiction is a lie,” he said. “Why do you want to read things about people who don’t exist?”… Read more How Story Saves Our Lives* →
I have been derelict, for which I apologize. And I really ought to write a post for SarahTolerance.com first, but I’m mulling something over there, after several posts about Regency sewing (!) and here I can talk about less, um, historical things. Like cats. And old boyfriends. I no longer have cats because we’re all allergic to them. While it was just me, and I was acclimated to my late cat Alexis, this didn’t matter. Then I got married and had a kid and, sixteen months into the kid’s life,… Read more Cats and Boyfriends →
I missed last week’s post (I really am trying to post weekly) because I was in Massachusetts for my father’s memorial party. Yes, I said party. My father was a big believer in parties, and he left very specific instructions about this one: the Dixieland band that was to play us down to the river where his ashes were to be scattered (by plane) and then triumphantly back again afterward, a real New Orleans funeral; the specific locale; and no “memorial service” or religious overtones whatsoever. Oh, and the party… Read more Obscenity →
I wrote my first book because I couldn’t find anything I wanted to read. Really, it’s as simple as that. And as complex as that, too. I had just graduated… Read more →
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it’s just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it. –David Sedaris Welcome. If… Read more writer*editor*occasional baker →
Madeleine Robins 