Mental Health

Where Will We Sleep? — Published Today

October 12, 2021

We’re proud to announce that the ebook and paperback editions of Where Will We Sleep? are being published today. Introduction Determined to learn more about those who fate did not favor, I toured tattered, handmade refuges of those without homes and also interviewed them on the streets and in homeless shelters, and conversed with the…

Read More

Simone Biles Opens Up

August 15, 2016

In an open-hearted but devious effort we have employed the regular media, mind readers, the National Security Agency, pharmacologists, and other intrusive individuals and entities to engage Simone Biles and determine what she’s really thinking. That’s none of our business, you might say. And to that I respond: why, then, are you reading this? I’ll…

Read More

Van Gogh In the Road

August 12, 2016

On an exotic summer Sunday I step into the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and head not toward a vision but a sound. “It’s the light or, rather, the lack of light in The Outskirts of Paris that makes this dirt road and the man in it faceless and gray and in need of southern…

Read More

Van Gogh on the Verge

July 21, 2016

Handing over my ticket, I’m excited to enter the Van Gogh Museum for another emotional exhibition. I’ve been to many and read about all the others. On the Verge of Insanity is a great title. By that I mean it’s appropriate. Look at Self-Portrait with a Bandaged Ear and Pipe: Vincent looms under a heavy…

Read More

Slab Man

December 28, 2015

My husband left me last night not for another woman but because he just found out I loved his best friend but that shouldn’t have mattered much since that guy’d dumped me a couple of weeks earlier. I sure was feeling bad this afternoon and told my boss I had a fever and needed to…

Read More

Deli Delight

November 10, 2015

I was hungry and the manager of the gallery showing wild faces said the deli across the street’s world famous go on over and get something. Okay I said and pressed the steel arrow to red-light busy Melrose Ave. and allow me to cross. Inside the deli large glass cases featured food I began studying…

Read More

Parking Lot Painter

October 23, 2015

No one buys my oil paintings on canvas. No one buys my acrylics. No one buys my watercolors. No one hires me to paint murals. They’re all fools. I have great work crying to be seen, and I prove it every weekend at street painting festivals all over. We don’t actually paint. We draw, usually…

Read More

Eruption of Enrique Guzman

May 9, 2015

You consider that a national-prize painting, ten feet of completely black resin and charcoal offering no message or creativity. I don’t care we’re in the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City and some might say I’m jealous I didn’t win. Nonsense. It’s necessary to be outraged and impossible to tolerate such a mockery of…

Read More

The In Crowd

November 29, 2013

I’m a leader and other girls do what I say and fifteen are helping me deal with Rebecca. I’m bigger and can easily beat her up by myself but that’s not the point. I want everyone to hate her. She used to see a guy who dropped her for me. That’s not enough either. The…

Read More

End of Suffering

November 25, 2013

Frankly, I don’t often feel well and really should say I never do. I don’t know what the problem is but try to feel better by smoking bath salts, not the stuff you use in the tub but a combination of chemicals that’re way stronger than amphetamines. This morning the bath salts hit me much…

Read More

Flight of Insanity

September 28, 2013

During my recent trip to Spain film director Pedro Almodóvar calls and invites me to join him on a short flight from Madrid to Marbella. Since I’ve never flown first class or met movie celebrities, I accept, figuring I’ll learn much about filmmaking. What a horrific misconception. First, I can’t find Pedro, and the flight…

Read More

Our Son

September 13, 2013

He’s good son until bipolar disorder attacks in high school and makes crazy, and Dad and I are relieved he marries bipolar woman and moves away so we rarely see. Years later he calls and says she divorced him, and I overrule Dad and say, we’ve got to make room. In few days he’s scarier…

Read More

Slots

August 20, 2013

Sarah didn’t enjoy husband, family, or friends and had no interests save gambling and was happy to live near casino she rushed to three, four, five times weekly and pushed credit card into slots she played hours, stopping only to curse rigged system. She said this was best part of life so didn’t mind burning…

Read More

Sunday School

February 13, 2013

Lady teaching Sunday school passes out coloring books and crayons and says draw pretty pictures. All kids comply but one scratches black lines over faces and bodies, forcing concerned lady to gently remove and wad.

Read More

The Right Room

January 5, 2013

First time in Puerto Vallarta I was hungover standing at basin, looking into fright, when woman popped from stall behind and said sir are you aware this is women’s bathroom. Years later long sober I stood in Bakersfield theater as two women entered and one said what’s guy doing here. Leaving quickly I forgot to…

Read More

Gun Lover

December 20, 2012

Firepower’s important and guaranteed by Second Amendment because Founding Fathers wanted us free and would be proud how well we protect personal liberty. So don’t blame gun lovers for slaughter of twenty children at school in Newtown. That wasn’t our fault. We’re law-abiding parents who want kids safe. Trust me, laws restricting guns are already…

Read More

We Still Love Our Guns

December 15, 2012

Just off work early this gray Friday afternoon I sought escape and relaxation in sports talk radio but the hosts weren’t talking about sports. They were lamenting lost lives of children and the senselessness of random violence. Something pretty bad must’ve happened but I sensed these somber gentlemen weren’t going to reveal what so I…

Read More

The Human Brain

June 9, 2012

This story is in the collection “Basketball and Football”

Read More

Big Sneeze

May 10, 2012

After hosting amorous boyfriend Sunday night and pounding treadmill half hour early Monday morning, popular high school math teacher Martha H drove to school, parked car, and walked toward class, confident she’d have another great week. She sneezed after shutting car door, and nose and sinuses had tickly, cleaned out feeling that became more pleasurable…

Read More

Garden Party for William H. Johnson

April 23, 2012

(A major feature about painter William H. Johnson, 1901-1970, will be posted later this spring.) I wish William H. Johnson, gifted painter of a unique world, were at this party honoring young African American artists, staged by the foundation bearing his name, at an elegant old two-story home near the Wilshire district in Los Angeles.…

Read More