Painting by Oregon Artist, Michael Orwick https://www.michaelorwick.com/

While 2020 may have been a rough year for politics, science has made startling breakthroughs beyond a Covid-19 vaccine.  Take fertilizer, for example. A product necessary to produce crops, it may contain toxic chemicals that endanger the planet. Now researchers at the Rich Earth Inst

I gave up my car not long ago and needed to call my automobile insurance company to cancel the policy. Having misdialed, I found myself talking to a bot.  It asked numerous questions–everything from my age to whether I owned my home. By the fifth question, I realized I’d stum

I don’t write much poetry because it’s work. Poetry is precise and guided by the principle that “less is more,” even as it attempts to squeeze the meaning of the universe into a ball.  Mathematics, also a language, is similar.  E=MC(2) could be appreciated as a line of poetr

Those of us who see challenges through a filter of optimism can feel vindicated for that optimism because, despite warnings to the contrary, the 2020 Presidential election was fair.  Never mind that more than 50 court filings were intended to upend the results. Or, that  126 members

(The Rules for Query Road) Some months have passed since I’ve shared information about my search for an agent to represent my memoir, Getting Lost to Find Home.  With embarrassment as well as humility, I must report I have contacted over 100 representatives and have been ignored or

Shakespeare created many memorable phrases like, “to thine own self be true,” or “it follows as the night the day”– so many that I am hard-pressed to avoid the Bard from time to time. Yet there is one expression I couldn’t do without, particularly during the waning mon

A friend at the retirement center sat down beside me one afternoon in the temporary lounge that management had arranged, its chairs set 6 feet apart.  It’s a place where residents are supposed to carry on conversations while masked. Despite her face covering, I heard a sigh as she

I chose to give up my car a while ago.  Losing my transportation, together with the advent of the pandemic, has forced me to experiment with grocery deliveries.  I’m a slow learner.  Sometimes, one avocado arrives, or two, but never the third that is necessary for my guacamole. 

I haven’t seen my friend in over two years.  The reason has nothing to do with the pandemic.  She’s ill and in pain. Accommodating guests isn’t on the agenda.  Even the bed is her enemy. She lives and sleeps in a lounge chair. At least, she did until two weeks when she was se