As of tonight, I will have lived here for three years, and can now call it home, but he won't remember or mark the day because he takes it for granted that this is home, and special days do not mean anything to him.

Last night I slept hard and long and dreamed deep, dreamed of dividing up a landscape into regions and riding through each region, of a small animal that came to me in despiration so that I could take off the jacket, leash, and too tight t-shirt that some other person had…

He's an univited houseguest, a duty, one that goes along with working for someone else but living in this amazing place, so I've grilled steaks, baked potatoes, picked a salad, heated some beans, grated some cheese, unwrapped my polite smile and poured a rather stiff drink, but the evening mellows, and my heart settles into benevolence, and the plates are shoved aside and he pours his second glass of wine.

The talk turns to stories of the old west, Teddy Blue Abbott, the…

Worrying about things you cannot change is like rubbing sandpaper on that little bone on the outside of your wrist.

Hate is like drinking poison.

Expectations are like holding your breath without being underwater.

Pointing fingers at faults in others is like using a highlighter on your own wounds.

Bitterness is a flavor that makes decent jokes but only if you add the salt of healing and the sugar of compassion.

Not working at the work you are meant to do is…

I am not a genius.

I am one of those worker ants that push and pull words into exactly the right place, the kind of writer who grills a ham and cheese sandwich at eight o'clock at night and decides to put lots of ice in her first drink because she has two or three more hours of pushing and pulling left in her.

It is Saturday night and there is almost nowhere I would rather be than on the page, twisting and pulling and searching and juggling the details until my characters walk…

As he aged, every inanimate object seemed to come to life, and he wanted to confide his suspicions to her, but she was still young. 

The clock face laughed at him, mocked him with the truth, “No, you can’t get up at 3am, and all younger people are sleeping soundly.” 

He could justify getting up at 4am even if the clock then looked snidely down at the bedside table,  “Well, if you must... just another day to mark off the calendar.” 

He drank coffee while the window threw…

How long has it been since you ran...no, not jogged for your health or trained for a half-marathon... ran, like a child, just ran up the road with abandon, or ran to catch up with your friend who got ahead, or ran through the raindrops for fun?

How long has it been since you slept out of doors, sans tent, under that huge big nothing and everything?

How long has it been since you cut pictures out of magazines and pasted them all over a new page with Elmer's glue or colored with…

The yellow cow walked over the cattle guard, following her instinct to come back to the last place her "baby" sucked, but truth is, he was not a baby but a two year old steer whose time had come to fulfill the yellow cow's purpose in life, and he is no longer at the last place he sucked, but shipped to the sale barn by headlight Monday night, along with seven of his equally fat buddies.

Still, she bawls, and paces, and looks for him, and I think of how he looked so much like…

I've been tilting at windmills lately and then saying "Oh, shit!" when I actually get one.

A dead mouse, somewhere in the dark hallway, kept me awake last night with stench, and I finally dreamed of floating corpses.

Fall showed up overnight a week ago, and now the plants and animals seem to be on overdrive, surging with sap and growth, doing their damnedest before a freeze.

I heard a faraway voice as we drove last night, heard him laughing through pain, making jokes and…

In the shadow of Jones Mountain, we are tearing down her house.

We rip off the siding, tear up the floor, strip off the shingles, unplumb her new bathroom, leave her chimney standing lonely against the sky. 

And I wonder if she liked the new blank white sheetrock that covered up the old green cloth wallpaper that she pasted on the 1X6s, and if the new wall heaters were her unimagined luxury after all of those years of burning wood to keep her babies warm. 

How long had…

The hawk can't see the bottom of the pond and the salamander can't touch the sky.

The elk can't slide through boulders on his belly, and the snake can't graze the hills up high.

The lily is rooted solid in dirt while the damsel is free to dance on the wind.

You tell me truths that don't sound true, and I stubbornly hold mine within.

The acorn wears a tight-knit cap, ready for fall's return, and the coyote grows a thick yellow fur, while the seasons bend and…

Voicemail: "Hi, darlin, its your mom.  Haven't heard from you in awhile and thought I'd call and find out how you are doing!  Give me a call when you can."

E-mail:  "Here is the layout for the review and excerpt for RP in our December issue***. Please get back to us by Thursday if you see any areas that need to be changed."  (I am three days late.)

Calendar: 12-town, 13-performance in schools plus houseguests arrive, 14-3 sessions at ACPG*, 15-2 sessions at…