The Meaning of Hair in My Life
For years, I did not think hairdos very important. My mother was always after me: “A little brushing would help,” she’d say.Read More »
A Landscape Where There Are No Toilets
A Landscape Where There Are No Toilets
“Jimmy!” I shout into the phone, “I’m looking out the window at my front lawn at an honest-to-God human turd!Read More »
Turning 40 at a Tupperware Party
Turning 40 at a Tupperware Party
It is strange to be thirty-nine years old and afraid to attend a Tupperware party.Read More »
Texas Sesquicentennial
Texas Sesquicentennial
“Time to go, girls!” says Maria, the supervisory auditor, pushing back her chair, sticking out a leg, and checking her hose for runs. “This is important government business!”Read More »
Writers Take Heart from Gogol!
Writers Take Heart from Gogol!
My English professor Anthony Hilfer, in the midst of teaching J.D. Salinger’s works, asked our class, “Can any of you think of any good stories that are about happy people?” He paused only long enough for us to blink.Read More »
A Texas Ranching Adventure: Coping with Neighbors
A Texas Ranching Adventure: Coping With Neighbors
“But who are you married to?” the older woman asked again.
“The German across the road,” I said for the third time.
She shook her head and frowned.
“He’s my husband,” I insisted.
She stared at me. “But . . .”
She just couldn’t believe that I, a white woman, was married to a German.*Read More »
A Texas Ranching Adventure: 107˚ in the Shade
A Texas Ranching Adventure: 107˚ in the Shade
“Are you ready to search for the blue heron?” I asked my daughter.
Thekla narrowed her eyes and looked warily out the open garage door.Read More »
A Texas Ranching Adventure: Chicken Employees
A Texas Ranching Adventure: Chicken Employees
Definition of chicken moat: a double-fenced area surrounding a garden where chickens are allowed to roam and feed, thus creating a bug-free zone.
Driving through the dark on a Texas highway, I shone the flashlight at my book and read:
“Chickens can be decidedly stupid about finding their home after it’s been moved.Read More »
See How Small/Scott Blackwood
A Book Review: See How Small/Scott Blackwood
Fiction winner 2016 Pen Center USA Literary Awards
Published by HarperCollins Fourth Estate
When I first heard that Scott Blackwood was going to write something based on the unsolved 1991 murders of a group of teenaged girls in Austin, Texas, I thought, oh no, leave it alone. We’ve all had enough. Because after that infamous crime, for years, we all saw those girls’ faces on a billboard and on TV, with a message offering a reward for information leading to the killers. The victims’ faces are with me still. I was once a teenager in that city. I had friends who worked at ice cream shops as teenagers. It could have been us.Read More »
Five Festive Traditions of My Wacky Family
Five Festive Traditions of My Wacky Family
You may think we hang upside down from the rafters at Christmas, or throw purple socks in the air for New Year’s.Read More »
