Remember my post about my cute little habit of saving empty tissue boxes that had attractive designs? I claimed it was harmless. Now I realize it is not. I’ve just seen a television show about a hoarder. Her bedroom, which is a chaotic mess she can’t sleep in, has (among…
Seeing a Ring Cycle is a big deal. Although it is perfectly possible to enjoy all four parts of Wagner’s masterpiece about the downfall of the Norse gods individually, seeing the complete story within a very short span of time is what he wanted the audience to experience. It pays…
Seeing the Ring Cycle is an important experience in a lifetime of cultural appreciation. I saw it first in 1975, at the time not knowing much of anything about Richard Wagner, its composer, except that opera lovers tended to fall into two categories: those who loved Wagner, and those who…
I was away from home for a week, having a very fine time attending the San Francisco Ring Cycle. On my return, I exited the restricted part of the airport and found my husband holding up a sign as if he was a limo driver seeking a passenger: For nearly…
This is what I posted in Bleeding Cool’s discussion of how few women are in the business (and minorities, and so on): As someone who spent significant time attempting to create a stable of female and female-oriented comic book writers for the Internet graphic romance novellas of MyRomanceStory.com, let me…
My mother’s dressing table, a lovely piece of mahogany with very feminine crystal lamps, a glass top, and a large wall mirror, was always crowded with family artifacts. Not only were there the silver-backed brush, comb, and hand mirror that had been her mother’s, but there were a silver pin…
[This is a cross-posted response to an open letter to DC exec Diane Nelson remonstrating about the coming DC reboot, which appears to be eliminating many beloved female characters and storylines.] The reboot reads like “New Coke” to me, the kind of classic error that is supposed to attract new…
My grandfather, John A. Brown, was a remarkable man. He spent his early years on the family farm in Tannersville, New York, then went to Chicago to study law. He supported himself through law school and his masters, an unusual degree in the 1890s, by working for newspapers as a…
I got a shocking view into the head of a hoarder the other day. I took a box of powdered sugar dessert cookies, nearly finished, into the kitchen and emptied it into a plastic storage container, including as much of the loose sugar as I could without creating a mess.…
My mother, Margaret Vartanoff, was an Episcopalian convert. She always greeted us happily on Easter Sunday with “He is risen!” In the week prior to that joyous day, my mother walked the walk of Jesus through all the miseries of the crucifixion. By Saturday, when he was “dead,” she was…
