I’ve spent the past week or so shuffling around aimlessly, discombobulated and adrift since the Seahawks' season ending lost to the Arizona Cardinals on New Year’s Eve. My beloved and mighty Seahawks did not make the playoffs this year. The last time they missed the playoffs was 2011. It’s a hard truth to square with. As such, it’s taken me a little time to snap out of my gloomy disappointment and organize my thoughts for this post. It was a tough season. It didn’t help…
Today is my 55th birthday. The Sammy Hagar tune “I Can’t Drive 55” keeps running through my head. It occurs to me that someday my kids will take my car keys away from me. After all, I am creeping closer to that golden age. I just hope to God that when they do, it’s the result of a high speed chase across multiple counties and not because of some embarrassing fender bender in a Costco parking lot. But back to the birthday, it’s a weird…
Seattle, May 2016 As he put a few remaining things into his backpack and took care of a couple last minute tasks, like vacuuming his room and boxing up his computer, it took everything I had to keep from crying. Trying not to cry takes enormous effort. It’s like wrestling a bear or beating back a wildfire. My chest constricted. It was hard to breathe. A swell of sadness rolled through my body, too strong to contain or manage. But I…
Uh oh, here comes Valentine’s Day. Of all the holidays across the calendar year, I’m not sure that any kick up as much emotional dust as this one does. People either really dig it or really loathe it. For some, it is a land mine of expectations, stress and, in come cases, unreasonable need. For the luckier ones, it is a Hallmark wonderland of candy hearts, hot romance and heavy breathing. For my part, I’m pretty neutral on it all. Excepting the occasional creepy overture…
This is my latest horoscope from Rob Brezsny: Gemini (May 21-June 20) English model and TV personality Katie Price has been on the planet for just 37 years, but has already written four autobiographies. You Only Live Once, for instance, covers the action-packed time between 2008 and 2010, when she got divorced and then remarried in a romantic Las Vegas ceremony. I propose that we choose this talkative, self-revealing Gemini to be your spirit animal and role model. In the coming weeks, you should go…
OK, so the other night I was sitting at my dining room table, working on something. I was using a magic marker. I’m talking a big-ass, old-school Marks-A-Lot with the gnarly fumes. I was working away and started to get a little lightheaded from the vapors. Things went a little dippy, a little flippy and a whole lot otherworldly. The edges blurred for a second. There was a pop of light, and then God was sitting right there in front of me, in my own dining…
Like most normal people with feet and sensibilities firmly planted in the 21st century, I am appalled by Indiana’s odious pile of caca that is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. While proponents claim that the law will prevent the government from infringing on the peoples’ ability to exercise religious beliefs, anyone with opposable thumbs and a functional cerebellum knows the more egregious implication: The RFRA opens the door for businesses and other entities to legally discriminate against LGBT people. WTF, Indiana? During Sunday’s airing of…
On Saturday morning, my 21-year old son Emmett took off on an extended road trip to explore the United States and, possibly, points south in Mexico and Central America. He loaded the last of his camping gear into his car and we said our goodbyes. Although I tried very hard not to, I cried. Aside from a few stops to visit friends in a couple of states, Emmett has no firm itinerary. His plan is to be nomadic. I won’t know where he is. I…
The New Year is here. It’s time to take a few deep breaths, square our shoulders and get it on. I’m feeling stupidly optimistic about the year ahead. Here are ten thoughts going in: Weird is better than humorless. Experts agree. So, if you feel that special inclination, go for it. You’re not getting any younger. There’s a lot of discord out there. Our fellow human beings sometimes make a mess of things; in the best case, they disappoint us and in the worse,…
Circumstances have a way of taking unforeseen turns and sometimes we find ourselves in a situation of living apart from our minor children. There can be a multitude of reasons–divorce, financial issues, geographical moves or even the kid’s own choice–but typically this is not the scenario we’d envisioned when we became mothers. We imagined that we had more time, at least 18 years, and we didn’t expect to be staring at an empty nest so early in the game. It’s a course shift of epic…
