Category Archives: Creative Non-Fiction

Dry refrigerated air. Warm bright light. Colors, vivid and organic. Symmetrical stacks of oranges (3 kinds), grapefruit (2 kinds), lemons, limes, apples (5 kinds) and vegetables: Read More »

Standing in the ICU, anagram of incurable, and listening to Hoobastank (worst name since Rainbow Butt Monkeys) and “The Reason” coming from a little radio sitting at the head of the gondola (bed.) Yes, “The Reason” and listening to the staff listen to me recite the system-by-system, the (it-doesn’t-matter) lab results.He goes Mmph, hmmph, ummph, Read More »

“Tell me exactly how you did it,” she says.

I covertly look to the right and to the left—as if a Star Trekesque escape pod will suddenly appear and I will Read More »

It’s getting dark when the road curves into Moab. My twenty-two year old daughter is with me on my cross-continent divorce odyssey. Six weeks ago, her dad told me our thirty-year marriage was over and my life feels as stark as the landscape that surrounds us. I’ve made a reservation at a swank place Read More »

210 Freeway Eastbound

Los Angeles seems to reinvent itself after a good rainstorm.  With days of dreary downpour finally over, the sun is out, the sky is a shade of blue I don’t recall, and the mountains show off now that their veil of smog has been removed.  I want to roll down all my windows and breathe to the bottom of my lungs.  Read More »

“Are they real, Mommy?”

My daughter was staring at my bare breasts one morning last month as I got dressed for work. The incisions from my double mastectomy were quiet now, having faded to a mildly aggravated pink over the past six years since my surgeries.

Read More »

            July 2nd, 2008. Truth be told, I’ve never been much good at remembering what the date is. Of course this affliction is exacerbated in L.A., where the seasons are vague at best, and I’m hard pressed to know what month it is let alone one of its numbers. Read More »

Philip Sr. & Little Martha, September 1965

Philip Sr. & Little Martha, September 1965

            The sound of our footsteps echoed through the hall. Dozens of faces too ill to smile stared at us as we tried not to look into their rooms. Hushed conversations mingled with the odors of Lysol, bleach and fresh flowers. We arrived at our destination.  Read More »