Urban Honking

Someone wishes to know what I did with the “dead octopus” referred to in my previous entry. First, I thawed it out (it came frozen, its tentacles wrapped in an incongruous spherical shape). Then, I drove with the director and cast out to a cool river location we had scouted the previous week. Then the […]

Recently opened up iCal on my laptop for the first time in a long time, and noticed my to-do list from nearly 3 years ago, still there in the sidebar. In my advice letters I am always telling people to make lists–to do and otherwise–and I keep forgetting to mention that part of the pleasure […]

Dearest Mister Dickson: It was serendipitous finding you on the Internet offering advice, as I have a career, business, artistic and big life decision to discuss with you, and I think you will be the perfect person to answer. Don’t worry, it really boils down to one main question. First a little about me, so […]

Graded my first stack of papers. It took two days. 2 page paper x 53 = two days of grading, but the required page numbers go up with each assignment, so by the end of the semester I’ll be grading 8-10 page paper x 53, does this = 16 days of grading? That math’s probably […]

I’ve had another realization! For all my adult life, whenever I have company or am company at someone else’s house, I have these dreadful mornings because I wake up 3-5 hours before anyone else (especially after a fun late night of drinking, which is what you do when visiting. Tragically, drinking makes ME wake up […]

Here is the dinner I ate last night: sweet and crunchy 7-grain bread with fancy stoneground mustard and sharp cheddar cheese, melted, plus tomato soup, a pile of arugula, and two garlic stuffed olives. What? No biggie, just a regular thing a person eats…IN HEAVEN! Lately in my classes I have been getting confused about […]

Two hot new advice posts over at http://urbanhonking.com/advice/. One is by a guest writer! Fun! Well, the school year has begun. My classes are fun, filled with smartypantses, just like last year. So many smartypantses at this school! I’m being ruined for other schools, I know it. What greater joy can there be than teaching […]

I recently chose to separate from my husband of five years. He is an incredibly handsome and successful artist known all over the world. We lived and worked in the same space and were rarely apart for even a day. Finally after our baby was 2 he went away for 3 months to work in […]

I turn today’s column over to the illustrious Dr. Pizza, who is highly qualified to take on questions about being an artist, living in portland, and interacting with a music community. Any questions along these lines may be passed on to him in the future, because he is a wise wizard. Q: why is Portland […]

Well, what a shame! What a shame, Ridley Scott. Your triumphant return to the Alien franchise was, shall we say, not as good as the original Alien movie. Shall we say more than that? Shall we say it was kind of a disaster? Everyone else is saying it, so why not me? – if all […]