Category: Thoughts

Q. When did you know you were a Black Swan? A. What do you mean? I haven’t noticed any feathers poking out of my skin or anything.  Do you see something on my back?  Pluck it, pluck it! Q. I mean when did you notice you were different from the other little girls? A. You’re right, I first…

“SO sorry I’m late–traffic was un-freaking-believable. Crazy accident on 1-10, slowed everything for miles! Why do people gawk at trainwrecks, so unrespectful. So uncool! It wasn’t even a horrid one, really. A pickup truck and two regular sedans, two ambulances and three or four sheriff’s cars, tops–no, I think one was a trooper. They had…

I’ve taken three long car trips this month–just back from one this morning– and I’m not unpacking because I’m heading to Asheville in a few days. Hours on the road means a few things — I once again have the lyrics down stone cold down to A Night at the Opera. I’ve had no less…

I’m sitting in a screened porch overlooking the Gulf of Mexico in Grand Isle, Louisiana. The waves build and crash, the air is heavy with salt, the palm trees, marshes and piers make a familiar silhouette. I love the Gulf, and I’ve staying in countlesss beach houses just like this one. Whether I’m in St.Teresa,…

Late 1960s Happiness came easy, like falling asleep in the car, like Santa. Roadrunner’s beep-beeps. The wayback of the station wagon. This smell, or the arc of water my grandmother sprayed while ironing shirt after shirt of the laundry she was paid to do.  A small doll with tufts of blonde hair named Pamela.  I named…

Do you ever feel as though the last ten or twenty years may have been a dream?  Concerned that your adulthood is a precarious sham perpetrated by capitalism and a greedy psychotherapist who keeps sending you in harm’s way just to reap the inevitable hourly-billed benefits of your defeat? Constantly feel on edge that at…

Instead of driving home after taking a breakfast picnic to the shores of Alligator Point, I dropped MS at her house and then drove to the laundromat. The good one, the newish one. The good laundromat is a one-trick-pony steampunk revival neo-casino-factory at your command. Rows and rows of heavy-duty machines churn to life on…

So my friend Alice calls me. Alice: What is “offsides?” Deb: Like in soccer? Alice: Of course, World Cup, hello? You are the soccer mom, can you explain it to me? Deb: Over the phone? Alice: Why not? Deb: Typically you need notepaper, chalk, or piles of coins to explain the intricacies of offside offenses….

The Gulf of Mexico holds the story the last two decades of my life. The Gulf wooed me here to Florida. Days and nights spent on the gulf shores have given me more than shells as mementos. I’ve watched my most precious things transform in its magical waters: my children swimming stronger each year, my…

Don’t you love learning new vocabulary words? You then get to use them three times the next week in important conversations, fights with AT&T customer service reps, and Scrabble games, and you just can’t believe how you lived so many years without knowing that awesome word. It’s like discovering wafflecones or your G-spot for the…