Finally reading 5 people you meet in heaven

“My ideal teaching planet would have 8 to 10 rabid, maniacal, fanatic art majors… hungry for the zeal of artistic exploration (!) inspired by the mere hint or crick of the eye wrinkle of one my aging octogenarian professors (…yes Emeritus). When I was an art student, I immersed………

The day I met Polly (a.k.a. Donna Williams-Samuel)

The following is an excerpt from my book, with some changes. ————————– I was taming a steaming pot of wild spaghetti with a wooden spoon when the phone rang. The water had been boiling at quite a roil. If I didn’t stay alert, I sometimes had fires. I had fires a lot. “Hello?” “Kimbuhrley?” Said […]

The Importance of Stories (open ended dates)

I was a small child then, but I heard the stories. When she was in her 40s, my aunt (now passed) drove a cab and smoked cigars. She was always one of my favorite people. “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.” – Macbeth Get the nasty bits […]

Contemplating Bad News or What I Learned About Life By Being An Artist

I ponder, I recollect, I remember, I forgive, I pour over the pictures in my mind and also in my boxes and albums. Perhaps he does the same; but like the day he grabbed the shovel while I simultaneously held the potato chip bag, he gets down to the basics of things. We are different but not so different, really.

Kid Things and Adult Reflection

Did you know that Play-Doh was originally an all white moldable wallpaper cleaner? There was a lot of soot on the wallpaper back then. People used to make a cleaning mixture mixing flour, salt, water and some chemicals to roll up and down the wall to take off the soot. Then Kutol, an early Play-Doh […]

URNS Dilemma

URNS Check this out: These are on display in the corner of my cellar. The four of them, (two pets, two people) have been on display for some time now. I know it’s a bit of a macabre theme but go with it. Think of this as a pre-Halloween blog or something. It’s become a dilemma, […]

Augusten Burroughs and me and also Egyptians and Stuff

“Guess I have to kill you now”, I joked during our ‘bathroom time’. He rolled his eyes and had this stern face which was his mask, the ‘mask of ALS’ (Lou Gehirgs) as it was called in the newsletter we got delivered to the house. His facial muscles were so weak that he had a […]

Contemplation on Dead Greyhounds and Women’s Rights; Ultimately Life Lessons

Some people are surely meant to be in our lives, but not necessarily to be in them for a lifetime. I think of course of those people in my own life who came and went on in death before I would’ve liked. My spouse left three children whose ages were 23, 14 and 9. I […]

A Life Ends, A Life Goes On

GRIEVING IS NEVER OVER. I wrote this right after the first group of holidays ended; 7 mths. after his death. A mundane task like doing dishes…Something I’ve done thousands of time. Going on without him. One Task, Revisited Starlings and titlarks bob greetings to each other. Partake in barren spoils; Yammering at meager winter offerings […]

Broken Peace(s) and Coping with Life When Vultures Are Circling Your House

Something I owe to the soil that grew- More to the life that fed- But most to Allah, who gave me two Separate sides to my head. I would go without shirts or shoes, Friends, tobacco, or bread Sooner than for an instant lose Either side of my head. –Rudyard Kipling (Above: A picture I […]