Walking back from the Post Office just now, I noticed freshly-fallen yellow gingko leaves on the ground. There's no other leaf like a gingko.  When I was growing up in Wilmington, I knew where the only such trees in town were.  These fan-shaped items redefine "leaf." So I collected a few just now and […] Read More

One: I’ve revamped my website. Two and immensely larger: my husband and I combined our finances. After only 27 years of marriage. For a person of the freelance mentality, this is a large move. Bottom line: I’ve proved to myself all I feel the need to prove. No more keeping score on myself. I’m ready […] Read More

Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable. — Wendy Wasserstein quoted at She Writes (I also think one can stay in and do something remarkable.) Read More

These trees are across the street from my office. Fall color can be an irresistible reminder to dare to live with one's innate flair.   Read More

Last week I committed myself here on this very blog to finish by last night a project that has been sitting on my desk at home for four years. This job was to go through the thousands of slides and negatives and B&W prints from the years when I was doing a great deal of […] Read More

Thursday morning, I started working on a little project that has been sitting unfinished on my desk at home for FOUR YEARS!!!! The wee task is culling and properly storing the photos I took in the many years when I was doing a lot of travel writing. They have been sitting in little yellow boxes […] Read More

I had no idea that house-sitting was an industry. In August, when I enjoyed a three-week bonus life as a “a New York writer,” I was staying in a studio of a daughter of a friend of a friend. It was an informal arrangement. And I was thrilled to get the chance to do it. […] Read More

In the last couple of months, I haven’t been at all in the mood to write. And I’ve taken some time away from it. However this week and last week, I did it anyway, which is more typically my strategy. But I did it quickly, without looking back, without being very impressed, without much giving […] Read More

Thanks to all who were so helpful in my brother Harry’s campaign for judge. He didn’t win this one. And this is the first race out of his nine political campaigns that he ever lost. It seemed to me, after he won his first at age 27 against a long-established incumbent and two other fearsome […] Read More

When it’s your brother who’s running for office, you’ll do all sorts of bold and marginally undignified things. Like standing beside a highway in a startling coat for four hours, waving and grinning at every single car that passes. That’s how strongly I feel about Harry Payne being elected to be a NC Appeals Court […] Read More