How To Start a Cult*

February 16, 2022.Reading time 2 minutes.

Find an issue people are able to get passionate about, say, child trafficking. 2. Share information and increase the outrage. Start with facts, but insert the occasional manufactured story to test the waters. Maybe try Pizza Gate. 3. Increase paranoia by suggesting that so much is hidden from the public. Again, use actual cases, for […]

Don’t Take It Personally

February 9, 2022.Reading time 1 minute.

Spurred on by my mother, I left home at the age of seventeen. It was the right thing for all involved, but when my parents replaced me with two cats, I couldn’t help but feel slighted: I’m deadly allergic to cats. When my mother-in-law spiked a meal with milk, hoping to prove that food allergies […]

An Example of Systemic Racism

August 12, 2020.Reading time 1 minute.

A friend texted me the following article on Sunday morning. She is the woman featured in the write up. We have known each other since our children were young, hers just stair steps behind mine. We raised our kids as single moms, without help from our former spouses. She was the first one to go […]

Murphy’s Got My Number

April 30, 2019.Reading time 1 minute.

Imagine my excitement when I opened an advertisement from Society6 to see one of my designs featured in the Mother’s Day email! Being featured is the coveted position we product-on-demand artists dream about. I shrieked with joy, and then… …realized that of the 100 designs we have up on our site, this is one I […]

When Turning Off the News Is Not Enough

September 29, 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

“I am glad that Bill Cosby got jail time,” I state, seated across from my husband at lunch. “I hope justice doesn’t stop there.” My husband shifts uncomfortably in his chair. He thought that Cosby should have house arrest. He doesn’t say it now – he’s too sensitive for that – but he has said […]

To Twitter or Not to Twitter

April 23, 2018.Reading time 3 minutes.

“Facebook is dying,” I hear from several friends, some of whom are social media “experts”. I use Facebook to keep in touch with close friends and family. I deleted a number of people when I got sick – mostly work acquaintances for whom I seemed to drop off the face of the earth. I didn’t […]

The Eyes Say It All

November 1, 2017.Reading time 2 minutes.

I put down the cellphone and glanced to see my husband seething across the table. “I can’t believe you answered that during dinner!” “I thought it was important,” I pleaded for forgiveness. It hadn’t been important, a social call from my sister. “Sorry.” We were dining out; I don’t know what overcame me. I’m usually […]

Please Watch “Unrest”

November 1, 2017.Reading time 2 minutes.

Just finished watching Jennifer Brea’s award-winning documentary on ME/CFS entitled, Unrest, and so many thoughts are racing through my mind. This is an important film, not just for the millions missing because of this disease and their loved ones; it should be required viewing for all who work in the field of medicine, and those […]

#MeToo

October 20, 2017.Reading time 2 minutes.

So many have expressed the lasting pain of sexual harassment, exploitation, and rape better than I, and yet, I feel that all of our voices need to be lifted until respect replaces entitlement, and honour becomes instinct. This fight is not new. Nor is it close to being over. For my part, I write. The […]

Duplicity

How is it I existin duplicatesimultaneously? This divisive selfpreoccupiedunforgiving Facing forwardalways looking backlost in moments (Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknuton. Image my own)

The Car Crash

That time, playing in the muck,foot emerging without a boot,hopping and laughingall the way home… Then, later, on the busthe impact of the carthe windshield crackinglike a giant spiderblood all overthe dead lady’s face All in the past –sunroof openkids riding along,music blaring But trauma is a spiderArachne reaching into happy placesand as much as […]

Empty Surges

Measured in spoonfulsprogress imperceptible Still feel the angst ofno-time-to-breathe lifestyle pressured from withinto get-it-done spend unavailable resourcesruminating solutions push against the wallswith little to show surrender to impotencyand wait for the next surge.