I still haven’t lost my pregnancy weight. And my son Andrew turns thirty in a few weeks. That kid was murder, I tell you. When he was little he was so in-love with me. So enamored, in fact, that he used to ask, “Mom, why DO I hate dad so much?” And good mother that I am, I’d say, “Don’t worry about it Ange, I don’t like him much either.” I mean, why not save the kid on his future therapy bill. But then he turned on me. When he was ten and did the normal thing that kids do—start […]

Crime and Punishment was written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in 1866. The book is fiction, meaning, not a true story. But I’ve often wondered how the author could’ve developed a character who is that messed up, yet have no personal experience with the matter. Like, Rodion’s mind is way more obsessive than mine! I read that novel in 1980 at San Francisco State College. It was way over my head, but since it was assigned reading, and since I resonated with the character’s mental anguish, I slogged on. My mental angst began when my childhood girlfriend died at only 19-years old, […]

Isn’t it a relief when you cross a major—always-gnawing-at-the-back-of-your-mind—task off your to-do list? Such was the case for me today. I came back from my remote little place in Hawaii to gray skies, gusty winds and frigid temperatures, and yet I’m ecstatic from just having completed a major edit for the second book in the C’mon Funk series. The first book came in at 275 pages, but the second is over 600. That’s because this memoir focuses on Funk’s run for mayor of Kansas City. And there’s just too much tell when you’re giving an inside look at a grassroots […]

Funk had a vision. What is happening! Is the world really coming to an end this time? My boy is as opposite from me as it gets. He’s a head guy and I’m a heart girl. He uses logic to navigate the world, whereas I go mostly by intuition, and the answering feeling I get in my gut when I pray. Funk doesn’t know if there’s an afterlife, rarely has a “feeling” about anything, and has never had a vision before. But he’s back in Hawaii with me now, and is re-falling-in-love with the remote little place that we’ve stayed […]

I never set out to be a “writer,” and my kids would absolutely gag if they ever heard me say that I was. Actually, I don’t consider myself a writer, as I don’t even know what the definition of a verb or a noun is, nor do I care to learn. This journey began because some people liked the Christmas Newsletters that I used to send each year. And then, somehow – a travel journal that I was keeping for my kids for after I was dead, so they would remember the big adventure we had in Europe – turned […]