Troll House
My friend Cathy and I like to carve out rooms for our troll dolls – or Wishniks as they were called in the 1960s – in rotten tree stumps in the woods. They were like natural dollhouses for these dolls whose hair was an unnatural […]
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Stories
My Aunt Theresa
July 9, 2022 My father had one sister and she was two years younger than him. She would have been 90 today. They grew up in the Depression, the children of Polish immigrants. My grandmother worked as a maid for a rich white woman in […]
German Chocolate Cake
I don’t have much of a sweet tooth. Given a choice between a brownie or potato chips I will always go for the chips. But once in a while, I love a piece of German chocolate cake. The first time I had German chocolate cake […]
A Personal Non-Reproduction Story
You might see this image and go, awwww…a baby. But that’s not how I see it. I intended the drawing to be as blank-faced as possible. A baby, yes. But colorless, and with no indication of gender or race. In 1979 I had […]
The End of Analog Shopping for Fun
I think I can get rid of this card now. The first thing I bought with my own money at Barney’s was a navy-blue dress. I was 22, ready to join the workforce. This was the early 1980s and fashion was hideous – though in […]
Real Estate Fantasy
I follow a bunch of cheap, old-houses-for-sale sites because it provides a much-needed moment of escape and fantasy. Yes, I’m sure my personal data is being sucked out – while I am engaged – which explains the increase in home renovation ads in my feed. […]
Dressing for Success in 2020
I was doing a closet purge today and found a few pairs of matte black tights that were once part of my de rigueur professional costume (no, I was not a mime but there were many times when my voice was not heard – but […]
The Mysterious Wisdom of Turtles
The woods of rural Massachusetts were the personal playground for me and my best friend, Jeane, in the 1960s. We must have been around 8 when we were allowed to just go off on our own for hours. I’m guessing that our parents were […]
Wistful Thinking
A few years ago, I was visiting a dear old friend and former colleague in London. As we were drinking tea in her lovely backyard like two civilized ladies, we began reminiscing about things we missed now that we are both of…a certain age. […]
Bedpan Alley Bus Route
Sometimes I take the bus up or down First or Second Avenue to get to and from east midtown. Despite traffic it can still be a more pleasant experience than being shoved and crushed by the workforce masses glued to their phones in the bowels […]