Dear Universe,
Thanks for this morning’s eye-burning sunrise because when we got into the car, Only was like, “I’m so cold I feel like I’m naked in a snowbank,” even though it’s fifty degrees outside and she’s wearing a flannel, but because middle school is the Land of Extremes, she clacks her teeth, blasts

The first time I went to NYC and told people I was from Alaska, they asked if I lived in an igloo. Unfortunately, no. I didn’t grow up in a house made of ice. That would’ve been way more exciting than our unremarkable middle-class house on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula.

Aside the from

I woke up yesterday with a cold sore. My lip was swollen and blistery and I was pretty sure the world was ending.

Turns out I’m still here. I think everyone else is, too. Apparently, the Mayans weren’t trying to predict anything; they just got sick of calendar-making.

Don’t think I wasn’t worried,

Someone I dearly loved died this week.

After I found out she had passed, I turned invisible. Creatures around me became their own planets, rotating in separate orbits. Someone turned down the earth’s volume knob and the little pilotman in charge of keeping our world spinning slowed everything down.

The squirrel outside my

I did it! Finally. After months of hand wringing and yammering on about how I need a change, I sneaked away on Sunday to one of those cheap places with Master in the name, signed in on the clip board, and a few minutes later…presto…

Bangs.

I now have a thick mop of fluff

The Syrup Store in downtown Johnson.

About an hour drive from Burlington is the tiny town of Johnson, Vermont. Notable features include a wool store, Lovin’ Cup Cafe, a syrup store, a college, and the Vermont Studio Center (VSC). If you’re a writer or artist interested in doing a

Summer, my thirties, the pears I canned last year…so many cool things on the verge of being gone forever.

Stupid finite human reality. I hate it.

Now I have regrets…like  I should have blogged during August (I’m a slacker). Should’ve made more of myself during the decade of my thirties. I should have savored

My ridiculous hair.

I need to cut my hair off. It’s long and heavy and ridiculous.

But I don’t want to. Maybe long hair reminds me of being young…

That’s the problem, see? I’m NOT young. I’m on the verge of forty, and the locks need to go before I “cross

I’m not sure why I love this mural. It’s painted on a building along Seattle’s busway in the SoDo Urban Art Corridor.

Maybe it’s the absurdity or the tension or the cat’s pink party hat or the red star on the girl’s pocket.

There’s something about the look in that Girlie’s wild cartoon