In the afternoon we went to Home Depot, where Dave struggled against his recent overwhelming desire to buy more plants. “Let’s come up with a plan first,” I said, reminding him of his earlier plan to come up with a plan. By the time we got home with firewood and mulch and landscape bags, I […]
Tag Archives: neighbors
Awkward
When I first saw her, she was talking to Dave and our host. I walked over and said, “You look so familiar.” “You look familiar, too,” said she. I love that moment when two people recognize each other without knowing quite how. It could be past lives or high school or almost anything. It’s so […]
How to become the Weird People
In the play we’re doing for the Citizen’s Play Festival, there’s a cage, a dog crate large enough for an actor playing a 12-year-old boy. At first I assumed we wouldn’t use a real cage. After all, it’s just a staged reading. Even in a full production, a real cage would probably be too literal. […]
Before’s and after’s
This morning when I was out walking the dog, we passed a woman I’d seen at a wedding over the weekend. I don’t know her but I see her all the time, walking her dog or with her kids or out running. Always with her hair pulled back, a scrubbed-looking face, in jeans or running […]
One good lie
What’s not to believe? I got an email inviting me to audition for a show filled with lies. For the audition, I have to tell a three-minute lie, as outrageous as I like. How hard can that be? So I accepted and figured something would come to me. But now the audition is just days […]
It’s like this
Like boots. I went to pick up Zoe. I put Django’s boots on first, because of the salt. We walked over there. It was cold. We went up and Marianne was just coming in from shoveling. Her face was rosy, like a storybook child’s. Katharine Hepburn and her sister were at the kitchen table. I […]
Burn
Not pictured: Tree. “Can you believe they cut down that tree?” “I know, it seemed perfectly healthy, didn’t it?” “And why do the signs say Tree trimming when they never trim trees like the one out front with branches that hit passersby in the eye, but they chop down entire other trees just because they […]
That Rosanna lady was not wrong
It amazes me to look at the list of things I wanted to accomplish yesterday and see from here that they’re all accomplished, but now there’s another list, just as long. Yesterday I did the shopping and hung the shade and did some cleaning and mowed the lawn and hacked the grape leaves and put […]
The day the circus left town
Late last night, the guy sweeping up after the very last elephant was a woman. She sat in front of her house and held a small sign: “Free Gov. Blagojevich.” I wanted to tell her that Blago isn’t governor anymore, and he isn’t in prison yet, but instead it hardly seemed worth it. There’s just […]
Breaking up is as hard as you make it
I’ve had this Ry Cooder song in my head for days and it’s driving me crazy. “Little sister don’t you kiss me once or twice, say it’s very nice and then run/Oh, little sister don’t you do what your big sister done.” I didn’t know why it was in my head – maybe from my […]