Swinging meat. That doesn’t refer to the grocery delivery Funk and I received during the initial panic of Covid. There was no meat in that order. It refers to Kansas City’s former mayor. More specifically, his apparatus. It hasn’t been easy to overcome my life-long bout of hypochondria, and the pandemic hasn’t helped. My husband […]

“Is your sister really as nice as she seems?” I asked. “She’s even better.” My cousin John didn’t even pause before saying that. A year later, I’m still blown away whenever I recall the exchange, as John has the type of relationship I long for. It’s the kind I want with all my connections on […]

More surreal things keep happening. But this one is something good. My book made it to the “Top-Rated Authors Reading List” that’s affiliated with Good Housekeeping magazine. Whaaaat?!!! From the bottom of my heart, thank you Lee Wind of

,Assault rifles carried by ordinary citizens, inside State Legislative Chambers in Michigan. ,How are our representatives supposed to work under those conditions? If guns are for our safely, how was a rifle necessary in that circumstance? Where was the danger? ,How is this okay?

I grew up in a violent home, and the world outside matched it. President Kennedy was gunned down. And then his brother Robert. Martin Luther King Jr. was obliterated from earth. There were riots over Civil Rights. Women’s Liberation. The Vietnam War. No wonder I suffered from anxiety. Most people would find it hard to […]

My ass has fallen. Literally. The cosmic audacity of it. In my early twenties, I gave up my first love. A love that was so pure—if there was any way to trade the pros and cons—I would’ve given up Funk to keep smoking. But I couldn’t. Which is why, 40 years later, I’m still with […]

I’ve never sung to anyone before. But I sang to my mother. Sitting beside her coffin, my hand resting on her cold, cold shoulder, I stared at her new form, feeling all crumpled and small. The computer played softly on a nearby flower stand, the music already queued for when her guests arrived. In a […]

Burning and cleansing. Those are the words that come to mind whenever I try making sense of what’s happening today. The situation has me revisiting the revolution the hippies started in the 60’s, wondering if this is the culmination of our efforts. I’m pulled to the music from those times, playing albums on my stereo, […]

My disappointment with Western Medicine grows ever wider. The day my mother fell ill, I had doctors calling me non-stop to get permission for one procedure after the other. They didn’t like that I was asking questions—I mean, how CRAZY to want informed consent!—but they answered my questions, because they had to. That was the […]

I’ve helped bring a lot of babies into this world, but I’ve never helped usher anyone out. Until my mother. She had a stroke on a Wednesday and was supposed to be fine. But then she wasn’t. My daughter convinced me that now wasn’t the time to brave-up and get on a plane, and using […]