Writing, living, and healing in the PNW
When I walked into Zocalo in San Leandro, CA, to meet with my friend Rebecca to discuss her gastric bypass surgery, I didn’t recognize her. I walked right past her, even though, really, you couldn’t miss her. She had on a bright, hot pink top, with little ruffles around the collar, she had on cute…
My brilliant plan to run at night entered crash and burn phase almost immediately. I headed out after work, 10:30 PM, down a very wide, well lit sidewalk. I had only one headphone in my ear, the other one tucked neatly into my shirt. I run with my head up and my music low. I…
“You spoil your babies!” My sister burst out, accusing and laughing at the same time. She had tried, to no avail, to hold my seven month old. Matilda was having none of it. My baby will let you hold her for about 30 seconds until she erupts into full blown crying, wailing, tears and all….
“What’s for breakfast tomorrow?” My brother asks this question every Friday and Saturday. During the week it’s “what’s for dinner?” For a grown man who is more into fitness and health than anyone I have ever personally known, he sure is food obsessed. “French toast.” I respond, offhand, because I can always throw together some…
I never had anxiety before I had kids. When I was a kid, I was fearless. I began to get a sense of my mortality in my twenties. “Okay,” I thought, “death is real, and I could die.” But still, I wasn’t going to, not for a long time. Never did I think I would…
“You cannot put the watermelon in the picture.” My husband says to me. “What? Why? You don’t eat watermelon in Mexico?” I ask, even though I know it’s not true. “Yea we do, but not for breakfast.” “Oh please. We’re in the US, and my readers know I’m a white chick with a Mexican husband.”…
Disclaimer: The links to books in this essay, like this one, for the Elephant and Piggie book by Mo Willems, redirect you to Amazon.com. If you buy the book, or anything else, through that link, I get a small commission from Amazon for referring you, which means you will be supporting my writing and helping me…
I don’t let my babies cry. Now, before you get all “oh, what a good mom,” or “whatever bitch, like you’re so much better than those of us who let our babies cry,” it’s not what you think. Of course I sympathize with their needs, and I want to be a good mom, and I…
I love food. There, I said it. I love food with a passion unseen before in the halls of time. I take longer to eat than anyone I’ve ever met, usually because I am savoring my food. ( I also talk a lot during meals.) I make a freaking loaded salad to take to the…
Today, more than ever before, we must insist that our businesses, the ones making money off of us, treat us like humans. We must ask questions, challenge standard practices, raise our voices and/or withhold our money. If we are marching forward, willingly or otherwise, into an even more extreme form of capitalism (and we certainly…