The sun makes days, seasons, and years. The moon makes months. But who invented weeks? What makes Monday a Monday and why does it come so relentlessly every seven days? Why is Monday night sacred to football? What about “luckless Friday the 13th,” “Flashback Thursday,” “Taco Tuesday,” “Payday Saturday?” and the long-forgotten “Monday is laundry […]

As a young girl, I spent many weekends with Grammy.  After lunch one Saturday afternoon in early March, I sat next her. Together we scanned the local newspaper looking for films being featured that weekend at the Palace Theater, a 20-minute bus ride from her house into downtown Dallas.  After selecting our film, off we […]

The dawn came with a musical silence.  I  slipped into my winter walking clothes and stepped outside.  The air was frozen lace on my skin, delicate and cold, like winter waves on sallow sand.  The trees were dark silhouettes, still as an oil painting.  Under a dove grey sky, the colors of my world donned […]

For the last five months, I pushed myself to complete the final chapters of my novel.  My cast of characters moved into my office requiring more and more attention with each passing day.  We’ve all had guests like that. They show up one day with no intention of leaving anytime soon, bringing their messy habits, […]

I grew up in a poor blue-collar neighborhood.  Our home like other homes in the neighborhood was as small as a cracker box, each one bulging at the seams overrun with children. Each home had a stay-at-home mom and a father who, like the other men in the neighborhood, left early every weekday morning working […]

October was evaporating into November.  The air outside was noticeably cooler, the brisk autumn wind tousling my hair around my face.  The wind was sufficient enough that the trees moaned, their leaves either loose on the ground or hanging by the loosest of threads.  I buttoned my corduroy jacket and scurried home, torn between keeping […]