(This follows on what you read before.) The hostess, one of those impossibly beautiful young women I suspect even young men had trouble talking to, glanced up at me. I pretended not to see her. Hank wasn’t here yet, which…

When people are hurt, angry and/or afraid, how can they become good? Good meaning having compassion, that is feeling concern for others and wanting to take action to help. I used to think it was based on their material conditions.…

“If music be the food of love , play on…..” Duke Orsino commands , in Act One Scene One of Shakespeares deeply ironic yet delightful rom-com TWELFTH NIGHT, immediately tossing the audience into the powerful Ocean of Love with all…

We are not permanent here. We are temporary. Management wishes to impress upon us beyond any spark of doubt that we can be replaced at any moment, that not one of us is so remarkable that we are absolutely irreplaceable.…

The past is clear in my mind. The unforgettable day, 50 years ago, when I first talked to Gwen. I was the boss; she was freelance and hadn't returned my many calls. I was planning to ask my boss what…

“…..we are such stuff as dreams are made on….” exclaims Prospero in the 4th Act of Shakespeare’ s THE TEMPEST, one of my favorite plays of all time, and truer words were never spoken. The wisest and most profound of…

Life is in the editing room, where we are making a documentary about a shark woman, Meghan, teaching her 4 volunteers how to do shark research. They have 4 big fishing reels, on which they’ve put sizeable cubes of salmon.…

(I'm continuing to work on revising my novel here. This is from roughly the middle of this character's arc.) It was freezing inside the restaurant, like the more air conditioning you had the more you could charge for a steak.…

I’ve spent at least 80 days on the road over the last two years: work trips, family adventures, elder care, writing retreats. And the strongest realization I’ve conjured after all that travel is that my life is not elsewhere; it…

“………ain’t never what a girl supposes….”, chirps the soubrette Ellie in Jerome Kerns hit operetta SHOW BOAT, backed by a similarly chirping chorus of towns women who think being an actress is filled with glamor and stage door Johnnies who…