STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON
“And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.” – Libba Bray I was bummed when “Straight Outta Compton” received only one Oscar...
Category: Love
PEARS IN RED WINE
In memory of my dear friend, Mary, the magical “Claire” of my memoir who died Sunday, June 15, of a brain tumor, I am re-posting this chapter from m...
A VALENTINE FOR MY GAY EX-HUSBAND
” Perhaps the story of our love belongs to the 1960s, when everything seemed possible, a spirit we never lost.” I met him in graduate school during ...
WHEN A BROTHER DIES
“Even siblings we don’t see, who live differently from us, who move in their own world, may be shoring up our lives, our sense of family, our feeling of b...
RETURN TO DEATH VALLEY
My husband Bill and I sat in the dining room of the Furnace Creek Inn. Arched windows, heavy wooden beams, and circles of metal chandelier-—the Inn felt like ...
DEATH VALLEY DATE NUT BREAD: ON THE FRONTIER WITH MOTHER
My mother’s love of glamour began in the Mojave, not as unlikely a place for romance as it might seem. She was twenty-six when her sister Marit and her brother-...
SOUR MILK BISCUITS: ON THE FRONTIER WITH DAD
My parents belonged to a generation that was on the move. Along with so many others in the 1920s and 1930s, they’d left midwestern prairie homes and migrated to...
COQ AU VIN
October 2005, I was to meet my daughter, Hannah, in London where she was taking dreamy courses like “The British Museum,” “Shakespeare,” and “Contemporary Dra...
CHRISTMAS IN COMPTON
“Many household food memories are a mixture of conviviality and tension.” — Janet Flammang, A Taste for Civilization I was a miserable child, made more mi...