And still get Covid, cancer, or hit by a delivery guy on an electric bike — On a Zoom get-together recently, my dear buddy Miryam was not just miserable because she had Covid (like that’s not enough, amiright?), but also because she’d been so careful. Miryam — unlike someone who will remain nameless— didn’t go out. She had her groceries delivered and then wiped them down…

What’s yours? — Anyone who thinks junkies are lazy didn’t know T.J. and Barb. They were up at 4 am every blessed day, 24/7/365, to be first in line at the methadone clinic. This would stave off the dope sickness long enough for them to start the rounds of the easy touch doctors…

Slowly learning to back TF off and stop running the show — Throughout my childhood, every Saturday was cleaning day. While it certainly would have been easier for Mom to vacuum, dust, mop, and generally straighten the place up herself she was grimly determined to teach her four daughters how to keep a clean house. It was a weekly fight with her…

She’s gone but she’s not — Last night, I hesitated to take my sushi into the living room before coming back to the kitchen to get the soy sauce and salad. Then I remembered. No cat. For the first time in nearly twenty years, this apartment is catless and it is weird. My partner, the guy…

So my Pulitzer’s in the bag, right? — George Eppley, formerly a Catholic priest, and later married to my long-time writing mentor, Anita Dixon Eppley, who had once been a Catholic nun — now there’s a love story for the ages — used to tell Anita that her mentee (me) was going to win a Pulitzer. Keep in…

I’m no longer the loyal subject of my household goddess — We knew the day was coming but tried to convince ourselves this wasn’t that day. It was. My $3000 Street Rescue When a tiny tabby kitten took me hostagemedium.com For the first time ever I didn’t have to wrestle her into the cat carrier. She wasn’t happy about it but all the fight was gone. Two deep yowls and silence. We took…

Or some hawk’s BFF? — After the first hawk scared the bejesus out of my happy little flock of mourning doves I wondered — and friends suggested — that I was essentially creating a trap by putting seed out on the fire escape during the winter. The Feathers Flew! The hawk that crashed the doves’ partymedium.com My partner urgently summoned me from the kitchen this…

Writing will make you nuts before it makes you rich and famous (and no guarantees on the rich and famous part either). — Here you are, you freshly minted new, bright-eyed Writers, you! I can almost hear the gears whirring as you stretch your arms, crack the joints in your fingers, and get ready to show the rest of us how it’s done. Well, Cupcake, lay it on us. Give us your best. …

What is that odd glowing creature staring at me in the middle of the night? — Slowly regaining the surface I lay very still. Two glowing red eyes under some kind of three-pronged headgear with a sternly straight mouth. And what is that under the mouth? Or…wait. Is it a mouth? Maybe it’s a mustache. Whatever it is, the gaze is unwavering. Unsettling. Oh, wait a…