For moments when a bit of originality, creativity, authenticity, or daring are needed, try this experiment. Try saying a genuine prayer–even if you’re a nonbeliever. I don’t just mean a reflexive: Oh, God! Get me outta here! I mean: Hello, God, could you join me in this endeavour? Here’s what I need….(then be as specific […] Read More

Amy Poehler — the Saturday Night Live star who played Hillary and Katie Couric to Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin — has launched a bold new venture. A web show called Smart Girls at the Party. It features young girls and aims to inspire young girls and is entertaining even if you, like myself, are not […] Read More

It’s on Hawaii— in a town lyrically named Haiku–built by 22 year-old Chelsea Kohl with her partner Chelsea Heller. The story is in the November issue of Dwell magazine. (The story isn’t yet archived online.) The house is made of found objects including surf boards, a disassembled truck, phone poles, stairs from a sugar mill. […] Read More

I just got a notice from MySpace that I must “use it or lose it.” They’re referring to the MySpace page I acquired in a fit of connectedness a year or so ago. The result of that is being officially located in five social networks. (I paid someone to set me up.) I haven’t done […] Read More

The tune that’s running through my head is “Born Free,” which is probably from my Peter, Paul & Mary days. Blog Free, however, is my current set of lyrics. As I was just saying to one of my brothers on the phone, the cool thing about this kind of writing is that it’s almost unlimited. […] Read More

Who wants to be bold all the time? It would lose its zing. Here’s a nice break: a webcam watching a litter of puppies who are at the perfect age to be the ultimate in delightful. They were all asleep when I just peeked in, but stretching and shifting around and propping their heads on […] Read More

A charming and inspiring Youtube snippet from The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams Bianco, illustrated with watercolors, read by Meryl Streep, with music by George Winston: “he wished he could become real without these uncomfortable things happening to him.” A classic story–about love and authenticity and a little toy rabbit becoming real, “For a long […] Read More

Ever felt a trifle nervous on a new job? Told yourself, “Just act normal”? Or worse: “Be funny”? If so, you must read: “I Am So Funny”. “My brief and wondrous career at The Daily Show,” Lauren Weedman writes, “consisted of making jokes about the Amish and trying to get Jon Stewart to love me.” […] Read More

An excellent primer on stopping an obsessive thought is posted on Beliefnet, which is a great place to explore/talk about any sort of spiritual belief or doubt. The ideas in the piece are familiar to me–but then I’m quite a student of obsessions and the stoppage of them. However, I don’t recall seeing them so […] Read More

I find entertaining difficult, not while people are at my house, but in advance of the event. Has to do with cleaning up the house. We live in a log house in the woods and have one large dog and one very-large dog with us in the house; both of them, bless their hearts, are […] Read More