I wrote an essay that was published by PBS Next Avenue a few weeks ago. You can read it here: Finally Ready for Marriage at 50. This was my first paid writing assignment and will hopefully be one of many. After years of barely blogging, a stint in stand–up comedy, and the constant pull to write…
Santa Fe 1993 and 2023
After college my best friend Graham and I moved to Crested Butte, Colorado. We made the 1800-mile road trip together, leaving from her childhood home in Richmond, VA. My car was a boxy four door Volvo, hers a Subaru - both solid choices for traversing the country. It was 1992 and cellphones were not yet…
221 Handstands
On January 1, 2022, I decided to do one handstand a day and document it, which is the official way to say I took a selfie. I had three rules: set up a self-timer, get upside down, and no retakes if I didn’t like the photo. I wasn’t sure where I was going with this…
Ode to JackJack
JackJack the black cat was named after the character from the movie, The Incredibles. He and his orange brother Dash were found on the side of the road, scrawny and scared, by some loving human. My roommate found their five-week-old faces up for adoption on Craig’s List and voila, we had two new little souls…
Operation Midnight: Bite Neophyte (PART 2)
Check out Operation Midnight: Bite Neophyte (Part 1) first! After work the following day I returned to the scene of the crime. I picked up a can of cat food along the way; a peace offering for all the trouble I was causing this potentially wrongfully convicted kitty. I went to the nearby NCSU horse…
Operation Midnight: Bite Neophyte (PART 1)
My friend and I were walking on the greenway absorbed in conversation, per the usual, when a GIANT PANTHER sprang from the tall grass onto the pavement and charged towards us. Jumping, we grabbed each other while my friend yelled. Giant panther was not deterred. Fight response kicked in. Lightening reflexes engaged. Laser focus calculated…
It Can Wait
I am drinking coffee and writing on this Sunday morning. I have a turquoise, soft cover Moleskine journal that I love and a ball point pen that writes just right. It’s a beautiful, sunny, January day. My phone is downstairs. In the time it has taken me to write these four and a half lines,…
Dinner with Meghan
Originally Posted 11-25-11… I just had dinner with a friend I met on an airplane 3 & 1/2 years ago. We were both returning to Raleigh from NYC. Bad weather kept us on the tarmac for hours before taking off. Naturally we exchanged our lives’ stories within the first 45 minutes. She was a kind,…
Comedy for Me
Originally Posted 12-1-10… It never occurred to me that you could actually study comedy. Correction: It never occurred to me that I could actually study comedy. I was raised in a household where you grew up to be an accountant or an IBM’er, not an artist and certainly not a comedian (although with five kids…
Tracy Cate 