Lots of people – lots of non-black, well-intentioned people – are heartbroken by recent news for Louisiana, Minnesota, and Texas. They think about racism and police brutality and how awful and senseless the deaths of young men like Philando Castile and Alton Sterling are. Their deaths were senseless, but if you really want to help,…
The other day, a guy I know made a comment. He’d been at the beach (one of the regular, public beaches here) and there were some ladies sunbathing topless. “I was happy they were comfortable.” he explained for my benefit, as though he hadn’t ogled. So generous of him, right? I stopped myself from gagging:…
Earlier tonight, a song I liked came on the radio while I parked the car. I sat and listened until it finished. That doesn’t happen to me very often, but when it does, I think it’s one of life’s great pleasures – when you can sit alone somewhere and listen to a whole song, in…
I picked my sister up in downtown Vancouver for our drive to downtown Seattle. As we navigated a couple of blocks downtown, in our hometown, we saw some terrible drivers – truly awful. Think: there’s a green light, but to these guys it did not mean “go”. “It’s like every cluck in the country is…
It’s pool weekend, Vancouverites. This weekend, our pools opened. It’s been marked in my calendar for weeks, with an exclamation mark – though I didn’t need to put it there. Because I have the date memorized. Saturday of the May Long Weekend. Now, some of you may be thinking: “What? The pools are open year…
The other weekend, we visited another couple and stayed with them. It was wonderful, they were great hosts. They were so relaxed; we helped ourselves to their food and beverage, did all sorts of fun things with them, and had an excellent time. Helping ourselves to their food was especially nice, as they had a…
About 4 years ago, a whack of things weren’t going my way. I’d had a couple of career setbacks, my romantic life was nonexistent. I was sad and frustrated. So I thought long and hard about what I really wanted. Not just: “I want it all!” but specifically: “I want x, y, and z.” I…
A couple of weeks ago, despite my best olive attempts, the rat race of city life was getting me down. So I dragged Z to a fishing-village-now-tourist-town on the coast for a restorative weekend. Tofino. It was beautiful, and I remembered something I’d forgot. In some places, there are no municipal bylaws prohibiting bonfires. You…
My desk at home is in a closet off the side of our living room. We built a shelf over it for storage, which the cat loves. For months after we built it, she’d stare up at it and meow. It’s too high to jump to by herself, which is a source of unending frustration…
Smoking is a bad habit. It’s terrible. Awful. Kills people. Q smokes, and he has to quit. Quitting, for some people, is really hard. Even when you know exactly how bad it is, it’s hard. I smoked for a little while, when I was younger and lived overseas. Quitting, for me, was easy. I just…
