I Could Have Been a Better Sister #grief

I could have been a better sister. I was only nine and you were nineteen when you married and left the family home. As you took your vows, I sat in the pew, steeling myself to be quiet, voiceless cries whirling in my head: "Don't go! Don't leave me!" I was only nine and, although…

I’m Not Okay But I’ll Be All Right #grief

I am going to take a hiatus from blogging and writing online. Not that I've been doing much of either lately but why not make it official. Here's the deal: my sister Shirley is dying. The sister with Parkinson's. The sister who has been dodging health curveballs most of her adult life. The only one…

River Ghosts by Merril D. Smith #bookreview #poetry

I always feel apprehensive when reviewing poetry, maybe more so than when I'm writing the poetry myself. Some time ago, I took an online writing course, and the instructor mentioned in passing that she liked writing poetry because you didn't need to explain poetry like you would explain a story or an essay. While that…

Life in Non Sequiturs and (Trying) to Get My Writing Groove Back

In a New Yorker article (September 13, 2021), author Amia Srinivasan made this observation: "[...] the Internet, [...] has simultaneously given us too much to read and corroded our capacity to read it." The context was feminism and what we think we know about it, but her description of how the Internet has impacted reading…

The Beat Goes On

You know I had to read my last post to see where I left off. Lol. Apologies for my absence from the blogosphere, not so much for not writing as for not reading. Whoa, I am so behind that I might not bother to try and catch up.  Update on my sister: Last week she…

Not So Good News and F**k the Pandemic

Earlier this week my brother-in-law called to give me an update on his wife, my sister. (If you're reading my blog for the first time, here's links to my two earlier posts about her: Waiting, but not for Godot and Waiting for Good News Sometimes Pays Off.) He had just come home from visiting her…

Waiting for Good News Sometimes Pays Off

You all were so kind with my last post that I want to give you a brief update. Bear with me because the news starts out as not-good. My sister had a setback on Saturday. She was moved back to the hospital and given IV fluids. We were all very upset, not understanding what was…

Waiting, but not for Godot.

I've always been indecisive, sometimes very indecisive, but never not indecisive. I wonder if indecisiveness is related to procrastination because I'm afflicted with both conditions. I have worked on my novel a bit here and there, but I've been spending the bulk of my creative energy learning punch needle work and knitting up some old…

Theodore Albers, WW II Veteran #MondayBlogs #MemorialDay2021

I wrote this post in 2019. Every Memorial Day (and most days in-between), I think of Ted Albers and how much I miss him. While Memorial Day is for remembering those veterans we've lost, do me a favor and also hold close the ones who are still here. (By the way, he would have loved…

Splish Splash and Sundry Stuffs #amwriting #amknitting #family

Don't worry. I'm not writing this post from my bathtub. No, I'm well-covered up in comfy clothes (including a wool cardigan), preparing another post of this and that and the other thing. Sigh. Where do I begin? I sometimes think I should write my blog posts one thought at a time. A while ago I…