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Holy City, Magic Kingdom

    During two weeks in December, I left a nine-day stay in Israel only to arrive at the Magic Kingdom 36 hours later. These seemingly opposite destinations hold much in common, beyond simply the number of minutes one spends waiting in lines, and the amount of money one expends in order to arrive at either locale. In addition to the preponderance of wigs and personalize-able yarmulke shops (some with mouse ears), a pilgrimage to either of these sacred sites involves a phenomenon I can only describe as “awe-fatigue.” One starts a visit to the Holy Land… Read More »Holy City, Magic Kingdom

    The End of The Affair

      Five years ago I took a lover. An exhausted mother with very young children, I understood neither the depth of my deprivation, nor my vulnerability in the arms of this Casanova. Besotted by blogging, my chemistry with Writing On The Internet proved all-consuming. Sadly, Desperado,  I’ve come to my senses. Studies show romantic love typically wanes after several months or at most a year or two (make that days or weeks in blogtime). Most couples who split do so before the onset of the 7-year-itch. After only one year online, I became internet-poly-amorous, buying three… Read More »The End of The Affair

      #WhereILivedWednesday : Dad’s House

        This is a mulberry tree and you can stand here and eat the mulberries and they taste good and you will not be poisoned to death. That’s the first good thing about my dad’s house. My dad is Ed. He’s an arbitrator and don’t ask me to explain what that means. Okay fine, it means one time we got a whole entire case of Salerno cookies. My older sister and brother live here too, when we aren’t living at my mom’s where my dad doesn’t live. Right now my dad is across the street playing… Read More »#WhereILivedWednesday : Dad’s House

        Please Join Me and #LTYM at Madison Women’s Expo!

            To enlarge this article, find it in the online issue here.   This weekend Brava Magazine hosts the Madison Women’s Expo, and nine women from four years of LTYM: Madison shows will share their original stories once again—this time on the American Family Insurance Dreambank Stage, Sunday November 24 at 3:00 PM: Our Mini-LTYM show will feature: Takeyla Benton (2013) Theresa Kim (2010) Dana Maya (2010) Kaye McClaren Becker (2010) Shawnee Parens (2010) Erin Ruzicka Trondson (2010) Sara Ward-Cassady (2011) Amelia Williams (2012) Annetta Wright (2012) Come shop, taste, play, mingle and more with… Read More »Please Join Me and #LTYM at Madison Women’s Expo!

          I’m so tired I forgot to title this post, Plus 2 free wads of wisdom.

            By Wednesday of this week I’d acted in an episode of The Louise Log for Season 3, and kicked off 32 Listen To Your Mother cities for 2014. Instead of creative writing now, I’ll be creative sleeping. But before I go, I have two wads of wisdom to impart: 1. I put myself way out there for The Louise Log. Wayyy out there. (No, not nudity noGodno.) If you thought my espousing creativity advice through Mexican Wrestling was strange, well, umm…just wait. The script changes kept coming, and every time my character got crazier and… Read More »I’m so tired I forgot to title this post, Plus 2 free wads of wisdom.

            #WhereILivedWednesday : 10 North Henry Street

              Last week I passed an apartment building, recently razed and now a hole in the ground. Sometimes when I drive by former apartments, or visit cities where I once lived, I picture my life still existing in the space as it did at the time. I imagine peeking in the window to see myself practicing fan choreography in a rehearsal skirt, while sipping on a warm glass of White Zinfindel and watching Friends. I half-close my eyes and see myself dressed in some early The Ellen Show-esque dress pants-with-tennies; I’m pushing my firstborn in an… Read More »#WhereILivedWednesday : 10 North Henry Street

              Passing Notes

                  photo In 6th grade, pervasive note-writing began. I don’t mean jotting down Mrs. Mallott’s “foods lab” tips for no-bake peanutbutter cornflake clusters, or defining Mr. Benson’s vocabulary of the week in our own words. Finally freed from the constraints of Elementary School D’nealian on newsprint, we forged our own unique penmanship blend of script, print, and puffy letters. My girlfriends and I filled pages of wide-lined missives riddled with code words and acronyms “SSS! LLL! Sorry so short! Longer letter later!” Hiding behind Language Arts text books, we fashioned custom signatures and generously employed… Read More »Passing Notes

                Bathing in The Purple Rain

                  I’m over at my highly-musically literate friend Nancy Davis Kho’s place today waxing philosophical about The insignia formerly known as Prince. Before you click over, leave a comment to win a free download of her new ebook “The Family Mix: Essays on Family Life.” If you love great writing, music, and laughing—you’ll adore Nancy as much as I do. *** photo For my youth, my friends, and especially on the occasion of dancing—nobody provided a better soundtrack than Prince. Even the wallflowers jumped up and down to Let’s Go Crazy at the Van Hise Middle… Read More »Bathing in The Purple Rain

                  Observations from The Middle

                    My 45 year old friend Dana told me how she identified exactly with an aging Leonard Cohen at his concert. Days later we held our beers, head-nodded and hip-swayed, sure of our peership with the young 20something front-woman of a band called Phox. I listen to NPR and whatever classical music comes on just like my parents do, until I hit CD and overbite to Greenday’s American Idiot or Weezer or whatever Husband stuck in there. I almost wrote Wheezer. Case in point. I’m often the only person at a table of my friends without… Read More »Observations from The Middle

                    Julia Child, pizza, and process: Solve the problem in front of you

                      We of the internet-gratification generation have the uncanny ability not only to keep our eyes on the prize, but sometimes to become nearly blind by keeping only the prize in our eyes. Kind of like when my son based his decision to participate in two seasons of soccer per year based on one end-of-the-year pizza party. The promise of a pizza party in May does little to quell the chattering teeth of a 7 year old midfielder in shorts on a 45-degree rainy day in October. Especially one who is gluten-free. But don’t we all… Read More »Julia Child, pizza, and process: Solve the problem in front of you