No Teleprompter, No Mercy

In the immortal words of Oprah Winfrey, “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!!!” That said, as much as I’d like to gather you all together in a central location and yell, “YOU GET A CAR AND YOU GET A PONY AND YOU GET A UNICORN!” “GEORGE. CLOONEY. IS. HEEEEERE!!!!!” That’s not going to happen. Look under your seat [...]

“This left me alone to solve the coffee problem – a sort of catch-22, as in order to think straight I need caffeine, and in order to make that happen I need to think straight.” — David Sedaris (When You Are Engulfed in Flames) This quote goes through my mind every, single morning.  I stand [...]

All Passes, Art Alone Endures. For the better part of my life, I have carefully regarded each one of those words at least once a summer. Intricately carved and embellished with burnished gold, they stretch above the stage of Norton Hall, the opera house at the Chautauqua Institution. Nestled in Western New York State along [...]

Okay, so let’s just say…it’s been awhile. To be clear, it’s not writer’s block. Not at all. If anything, it’s the ingrained notion passed down from my mother that if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all coupled with my father’s classic directive, “don’t be coarse, Katherine.” Here’s the thing: [...]

I’ve often heard that those we love who die are always with us.  But I never expected the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Division of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources to confirm it for me. It was a summer ago that my father handed me a spreadsheet.  It contained an exhaustive list of [...]