When I was a little girl running loose with my cousin in the dusty streets of the village where my grandparents had a house and a name and a presence and a history, we would often, on our perambulations, come across those ubiquitous black-kerchiefed old women of Eastern Europe - sitting out in the thick summer shade cast by ancient lindens and the ( Read more... )

Just yesterday, flapping around the Web as you do, I tripped across this article

It'a about "anomie", and they define the term like this:

Anomie, which literally means “without law” in German and French, was defined by Durkheim to be a state of “normlessness.” ....in times of social change and upheaval, clear societal standards and expectations ( Read more... )

For some reason there were far fewer deer along this summer than usually - by this time, coming up to August, we're usually treated to at least one spotted-fawn family trotting by and being endearing but this year I've only seen a handful of fawns and none have come to visit me here at the back porch. Perhaps I should buy another salt lick as ( Read more... )

Married people call each other things. You know - like "Darling", or "Sweetie", or... or... [insert endearment of choice here]. There is a certain divide across The Pond, as it were - Brits tend to favour "Darling" and the Americans tend to favour "Honey", for instance ( Read more... )

See, here's the thing - I am positively dangerous when let loose amongst bookshelves.

Take this morning. A local used book store had sent both rdeck and me little "happy birthday" cards, come-in-and-get-$5-off-your-purchases-because-it's-your-birthday kind of thing. In addition to this, we hauled in two large bags full of other books, stuff we wanted ( Read more... )

...and saw the stars as your destination ( Read more... )

The first time I tripped over the name of Matt Ruff, he was... just a name. I had heard interesting things about the book "Fool on the Hill", and when I finally opened it up it was with curiosity, and a certain set of expectations.

He blew them all away.


( Read more... )

You know the tunes that won't leave your head? The persistent earworms? The ones that just SIT there, and the moment you think you've banished them and are thinking of something else, back they come, bigger and better than ever ( Read more... )

When I was asking about topics for this series of blogs, one of the first suggestions that came up was vylar_kaftan's contribution - to tell about an alternate life I might have led (or wished to lead), something that I might have wished to do with my life if I had not set my feet on this writing path so long ago ( Read more... )

It often seems hard to remember the details - but I grew up in a time and a place where stuff to eat was seasonal, and you couldn't just wander into a stuffed supermarket and buy tomatoes from the other hemisphere if you felt like having them in mid-winter. When I was growing up, my grandmother's kitchen was one where old-fashioned jam-making and ( Read more... )