The First Time
Once Upon A Time On Halloween
*a submission to local arts and culture magazine, which will be published in August? September? Maybe, if they like it! Fingers x'ed, yet what matters is that I do. 🙂 It was Halloween, the perfect day to move from the Catskills into the big city; what’s the worst...
Last Love
For years I chose the man to suit the instant,from good guy to goat boy.Not one could bridal me. In place of lace veil,I peered from bandage gauze.And if, in rage, some suitor tore that off, the red sunwas a scald, and I felt scalpedand rocket-shot onto the nearest...
The First Time: How Old Were You?
How old were you when you were first sexualized by a man (or a woman, for that matter)? Turned into an object of desire by the male gaze, by a teacher, preacher, neighbors, family member or parent? By your culture at large suddenly making you aware of what your body...
The First Time: K.B.
*It's been an age since I have posted anything on the theme of 'The First Time' but then this arrived in one of my inboxes. I have slightly edited it for clarity. I haven't abandoned the project, just trying to figure it out, recalibrate and re-think how to and who...
The First Time: At a Friend’s Farm
Last night I watched the film Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. I had never read the book; is it possible I'm the only woman in America - not in a conservative cult - to have missed it?! I'm not sure why we didn't have a copy. It certainly wasn't and isn't even...
The Weeping Bride
Three times in my life I have watched women friends of mine, dressed all in white, carrying beautiful bouquets of flowers, walk down the aisle sobbing. The first time I was in my mid-twenties; I had known the bride and her family since middle-school. Her groom,...
Jerry Springer
I confess I never watched the Jerry Springer show, although I certainly knew what it was, from clips and headlines, and the general unavoidable knowingness of the flashiest flashpoints, highs and lows in the cultural zeitgeist. Springer, even having never watched it,...
PSA: OB/GYN Visitors Guide
*from ProPublica, September 2023, and worth reading and sharing widely...authors: Adriana Gallardo, for ProPublica, and Jessica Schreifels, for The Salt Lake Tribune. This guide was created in response to ProPublica and the Tribune reporting on abuse by OB/GYNs, and...
Mission: Impossible
Mission: Impossible. Not the films, but the original TV series, from the 1960s. There was an episode - I can't find out the name of it, if indeed it was named - that has stayed with me, all these years later, in the way some stories do. We only got that channel before...