Urban Honking

Well it happened, we bought that house I was telling you about! The deal was sealed last night. It’s so funny how it works. PRIVATE PROPERTY, what a racket. You find a house you like and you go to the seller and you say “I would like to buy the house for this amount of […]

There is a teen who lives across the street from us. We are very interested in observing her and have had many opportunities to do so. She is so familiar to me. So easily can I call up those welters of unmanageable emotions. So clearly can I remember how it felt to be completely unaware […]

I just got asked to take a very bizarrely-written and -constructed survey by one of my professional societies. What on earth! Did a computer write it? Or is this how low the ability of administrators to clearly articulate thoughts has sunk? Sweet lord Usually it’s easy to see, after a few questions, what creepy corporate […]

We bought a house! It is small and cute, in a semi-sketchy, semi-lovely little town that over the next few years is either going to descend into apocalyptic nightmare or become the next up-and-coming cute town around here. They are trying to pump money into education, drug treatment programs, etc. It has a very strong […]

I will be doing a presentation at the Cannabis Creative Conference this Wednesday. It is an interesting time for this industry in Oregon with the maturation of medical and the birth of recreational categories. There are many challenges and opportunities ahead. I will discuss design, brand building, marketing, and communications best practices; what’s working and what isn’t […]

I am in my office, working. I heard a throbbing sound that sounded like a train. “Holy shit, is that a train or something?” I said out loud. Or, horrors, is it a tornado, which sounds like a train?? Finally I realize my husband is listening to a recording of a train on our record […]

For a long time, and more or less inexplicably, I have coveted the diaries of Cosima Wagner. They are voluminous. Well, actually, they are in two volumes, but each volume is truly immense–volume one, which I have before me, is 1010 pages (in manuscript form! Imagine it handwritten). There is a set of them at […]

I am not feeling like I am personally interesting enough, or like I am having interesting enough ideas about anything, to justify writing in a blog on the internet right now. On the one hand, I believe this awareness is to my credit; on the other hand, here I am, writing a blog entry nonetheless. […]

I have a scenario in which I am involved with someone who is housemates with 4 other people….one of which as I found out some time after dating him is an ex lover. I found this out because there was a situation that occurred with this ex and a very close friend of mine before […]

I did a PechaKucha presentation in Portland recently. The seven minute piece is now online, so I am sharing it here.  The theme for the night was Survival. I talk about surviving a bike accident resulting in a traumatic brain injury and about how a magazine that has never made any money can survive for more than 20 […]