Mom and me, Big Bear Mountain, ca. 1980 I know I don’t know what cold really is. I’ve lived in Southern California most of my life, and I can probably count the times I’ve seen the snow on my fingertips. I don’t know how it feels to bundle up head to toe. I have never […]

Today, I am celebrating my little victories, like making do with the limited groceries I had in the fridge and ending up with a green bean frittata, pushing myself all the way to the reservoir to meet Becky for an early morning walk, and learning a new way to string beads so that I could […]

When I was in junior high school, I hated carrying a purse. On more than one occasion, I remember Ricky asking whether I had a Kleenex or a pen or a piece of gum. Anything, really. My response was always “No,” and his reply to that was usually something like, “You’re a girl. You should […]

Wall for rent, off Melrose Ave.

This weekend, Stella and I cleared the dining room table and sat on opposite sides without saying very much to each other. Sunlight crept in through the window, dreamy tunes filled the air, and, without paying any mind to the time, we sewed. It was my second time to use my sewing machine and my […]

Nevermind that the the Decemberists make wonderful, charming pop music or that their vocabulary kicks my vocabulary’s ass. Nevermind that they are a lot of fun live, as witnessed at Spaceland on Friday. Nevermind that the first stanza of Red, Right Ankle makes me ridiculously happy and I can’t stop humming it. No, nevermind that. […]

View from the Getty Center lawn There was one day last month when, if you stood at just the right spot at just the right time, you could see all the way to downtown Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean without turning your head or squinting your eyes. The tangled highways, towering buildings and endless […]

The Wound & Wound Toy Co., Melrose Ave. “We do not stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.”

Like several artists I know, I seem to have developed a crush on Danny Gregory and his sketchbooks. A man after my own heart, he has kept journals for years, documenting little and big details and finding beauty in the every day. He doesn’t just draw–he sees. By that, I mean through the process of […]

You Are Free, an illustration I drew for Measure Magazine My friend Daniele is doing something very cool this year. She’s doing everything that scares her. I love that idea: Taking wild, courageous leaps into territory we’ve never gone before–territory we assumed was blocked off with yellow tape and orange cones. I want to do […]

I want to tell you something new — new, like the blinding white of our freshly painted living room ceiling or my neighbor upstairs whose name is the same as a Green Day album — but I am still stuck in the old. I am still thinking about last year, glorious 2003 that was so […]