Holy smokes. Did someone slip me a mickey? One day, I was typing about Halloween and now there’s a Charlie Brown-style Christmas tree in my living room. Poor old blog. Amid these scurrying, overloaded days, it’s always the last one picked, the scrawny four-eyes left on the fence during Dodgeball at recess. I sit here,…… Continue reading First things first
Blog
Where we find ourselves
It’s Halloween night. On my dash to the store to pick up bags of Kit-Kats and Dum Dums, I saw Princess Leia, Episode 4, out having a smoke on the front porch, which made me cackle with glee. As I jump up and answer the knocks from the costumed, wee, sugar-amped scamps running up to…… Continue reading Where we find ourselves
Here instead.
I have an ocean of tasks that I must do for job-job, but I decided that before the week knocks me off my feet and pulls me under, I would come here instead to snatch a moment of writing. It looks as though these snatches are all I’m going to be able to pull off…… Continue reading Here instead.
Balloons in the sky
I’ve been doing yoga. What can I say? You get to wear flared stretchy pants and do poses with silly names (plus, you know, breathe and stretch for an hour). Admittedly, I struggle at times with yoga-speak: you know, that low, soothing, align-your-chakra-find-your-spirit-animal-visualize-your-best-self talk. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in the Vortex Capital of…… Continue reading Balloons in the sky
Die Vampire Die!
That excellent title comes from a cast recording from the musical [title of show] featuring Susan Blackwell, Hunter Bell, Heidi Blickenstaff, and Jeff Bowen. One of my delightful honors composition students sent it to me after we were talking in class about the Inner Critic. You know, that horrid voice in your head, who speaks…… Continue reading Die Vampire Die!
Visible heat
The temps this week are supposed to be in the low 100s, which means I-don’t-know-what for the heat index. Yesterday, I was driving home from our weekly beating (aka grocery shopping), when I noticed what I’ve heard people talk about in the South: you can see the heat. There it was, a heavy, tin-can gray…… Continue reading Visible heat
This is your brain on summer
July, I hardly knew ye. I’m stunned as usual at how summer is flying right on past the horizon without pausing to give me so much as the finger. Speaking of flying (and birds): A hawk — a hawk — totally landed on the hood of my parked car today. It set off the auto…… Continue reading This is your brain on summer
Quills + daggers
My Jane Austen action figure comes with a quill. But check out her shadowy side: Is it me, or does that shadow look… malevolent? More dagger than writing utensil? Or both tools at once? Slay your inner demons, your metaphoric beasts, your Angel in the House; slash through the jungle of despair and uncertainty; sever…… Continue reading Quills + daggers
100 pages
I hit the 100-page mark on my crazy novel-in-progress yesterday (I wrote some about it and the process here), and here’s what came into my head: Yes, it’s a small victory (as when your “flood pants” keep your cuffs dry), but one that felt big, at least mentally and emotionally. Those pages may be a…… Continue reading 100 pages
Plant
Back in the mid ’90s, a decade that now brings to mind the strange odors of hair gel (Jason Priestly, people!) and cigarettes (I used to smoke a lot) and overripe mulberries (a messy tree outside my home office), I used to write this really silly column for my college newspaper called “The Last Word,”…… Continue reading Plant
Bryn Chancellor 