how I became a cheesehead

I am a Green Bay Packers fan. I didn’t grow up watching much football, and I definitely wasn’t a player. And I’ve never been to Wisconsin. What happened is this: Several years ago, I had a dream that—as a fortyish, short, nonathletic woman—I managed to walk on at tryouts for a professional football team whose […]

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misadventures in Spanish London

Because Laurel wanted this journal entry from yesterday to be a blog post. Early this morning, right before the alarm went off, I dreamt that I was living in London and my sister had come for a visit. In my dream, London looked oddly like Spain, with jam-packed, multi-terraced buildings set in close urban hillsides. […]

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where writing ideas come from

Earlier this morning, I received a “regrets” letter from the Jan Michalski Foundation, regarding my application for one of their “Swiss tree house” writer residencies for 2017. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been looking forward to that opportunity until it was taken away, but that’s how things work sometimes, right? I’d even gone so […]

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books read: March through October 2016

Holy bodhisattvas! I hadn’t meant to go so very long without updating my monthly reading list. As always, this list includes only the books I completed, and not those I decided to abandon; there are also a few re-reads, per usual. So here goes, eight months in one post . . . October 2016 The […]

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day 666

Yes, it’s true. Today, according to my very possibly inexact calculations, is Day 666 of the daily migraine. I’m not going to get into a big long update here of all of the potential remedies we are continuing to try or what’s next on the list. I can tell you that what we have so […]

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the Bollywood miracle

This past Sunday afternoon, I did something that I would have said was nearly impossible: I danced for two full hours in a fast-paced Bollywood dance workshop. Yeah. Twenty years ago, that wouldn’t have seemed like a big deal. Even ten years ago I might have thought I was up for it. But my health […]

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WESTERCON!

You may have heard that Westercon 69 is coming to town this weekend—July 1-4. I was lucky enough to be included as a panelist this year, and you can find my schedule here. My panel topics/titles: How Being an Engaged Patient Can Save Your Life Saturday Noon Kaffeeklatsch (I’m kind of worried no one will […]

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