Mixed Metaphors

May 04 2014

Posts

Light & Shadow

“Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In many parts of the country this year, winter has been unrelenting and even spring seems cast in darkness, cloudy grey days lingering like a bad mood. People I encounter in both my personal and professional life seem short-tempered and surly, or depressed and sullen. I’ve been experiencing a crisis of confidence in different areas of my life, questioning my choices, judging myself harshly, or needing reassurance. I’m projecting thoughts, motives, and perceptions onto others. I finally realized I need to face my shadow to find the light. Continue reading →

Tagged Light, Photographers, Photography, Seasons, Shadow, Spring, Stories, Summer, Winter, Writers, Writing, Yin-Yang

Apr 27 2014

Posts

Lost & Found

Finding Vivian Maier

Yesterday I saw the film, Finding Vivian Maier. It is the previously untold story of a street and portrait photographer. Ms. Maier’s portraits were not staged or styled. Her subjects were often captured surreptitiously as she marched out into to the streets of Chicago with the children in her care. Vivian was a nanny to some of Chicago’s upper middle-class and wealthy families who lived along the North Shore of Lake Michigan. She left her job as a seamstress in New York to become a nanny so she could find ways to be outdoors, to be out in the world yet still hide in plain sight. Vivian was an undercover artist. Continue reading →

Tagged Artist, Death, Eccentric, Films, Friends, Hoarding, Loss, Movies, Personal Narratives, Photography, Stories, Vivian Maier, Work

Apr 20 2014

1 Comment

Posts

Journal/Journey

“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” ― Gabriel García Márquez

Years before I started writing for others, I wrote poetry and journaled for myself. Sometimes I would share a poem with the person who inspired it yet seldom a journal entry. Journaling by its very nature is a private act, a conversation with oneself, often a daily record of happenings, experiences and observations. Sometimes our loved ones or curious friends or colleagues surreptitiously read our journals. Much is written about the consequences of reading someone’s journal without the author’s permission.

Continue reading →

Tagged AA, Easter, Family, Fathers, Friends, Holidays, Home, Journaling, Journals, LGBTQ, Love, Memoir, Mothers, Movies, Personal Narratives, Queer, Racine, Relationships, Spring, Stories, Wisconsin Film Festival, Work

Apr 12 2014

1 Comment

Posts

Wisconsin Film Festival Fandom

A Filmgoer’s Guide to the 2014 Wisconsin Film Festival

Each year at the end of March or early April, I take a week’s vacation. Let me clarify. I still show up at work each day, I don’t leave the city, yet I’m transported to places all over the world; I time travel, and meet unforgettable people both on the screen and the filmgoers in line waiting to see the movies and sitting next to me inside the sold-out theaters. I’m an old-school movie fan. I still enjoy being in the audience of a movie theater sharing the experience with companions and anonymous others. One of the fandom features of the film festival is that people actually talk to each other while waiting in the queues to buy tickets, or to see the movie. Festival filmgoers chat each other up inside the theater too, before and after the films. The Wisconsin Film Festival (WFF) is one of the annual rituals for which I’m grateful I live in Madison. Continue reading →

Tagged Filmgoing, Films, Movies, Wisconsin Film Festival

Mar 29 2014

1 Comment

Posts

Conversations w/My Next Girlfriend: Episode 5

Note: This is the fifth in a series of imaginary conversations with my next girlfriend.

Dear Next Girlfriend,

It’s been awhile since I’ve talked with you. There’s something about winter that makes some of us isolate and retreat to our homes. I count myself in that group this year. It has been a particularly challenging season and like so many others this winter I found comfort and solace in my home, snuggled up on the couch like an ole’ hibernating bear. Now that the first real hints of spring have arrived, I’m awakened again and so are many of my desires. For many creatures, including us, spring is mating season. Continue reading →

Tagged Infidelity, Lesbian, Lesbian Bed Death, LGBTQ, Loss, Love, Marriage, Movies, Queer, Relationships, Spring Fever, Wisconsin Film Festival

Mar 23 2014

3 Comments

Posts

The Comfort of Sourdough Pancakes

How friends, family and food feed the spirit.

Life has a way of unfolding in waves. Some days the lake is calm, other days, treacherous. What’s required is an ability to navigate confidently and to be even-keeled when called upon. Sometimes we require a crew, shipmates who can prevent us from capsizing. Continue reading →

Tagged Comfort, Family, Food, Friends, Holidays, Home, Intimacy, Memoir, Personal Narratives, Relationships, Stories, Support

Mar 16 2014

Posts

The Vibrator Story

People and families have a personal narrative history and so do places. My birthplace, my hometown, Racine, Wisconsin has one. It is the story of a factory town which attracted European immigrants, beginning with French explorers in 1699 who established trading posts at the mouth of the Root River where it empties into Lake Michigan.

Continue reading →

Tagged Family, History, Personal Narratives, Racine, Wisconsin, Work, Working Class

Mar 08 2014

Posts

March Madness & Spring Fever

It’s finally here, March Madness and I’m not talking about collegiate basketball tournaments and NCAA brackets, no, I’m referring to the time of year, especially in the northern hemisphere, when a number of celestial and biological phenomenon align. First, the sun shines directly on the equator creating the Equinox when day and night are illuminated equally. In March it’s the Vernal or Spring Equinox this year officially on March 20. Tonight however, before we go to bed we set our clocks ahead one hour and spring forward to enjoy additional daylight. We lose an hour’s sleep and it may take us awhile for our circadian clocks to adjust, yet it is always worth the effort. Continue reading →

Tagged Daylight Savings Time, Seasons, Spring, Spring Fever, Winter

Mar 01 2014

1 Comment

Posts

The Ex Files

“Well, I’ve been afraid of changing
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I’m getting older too” Landslide, Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac

Thomas Wolfe’s posthumously published novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, posits that we can never return to the home or town we left and find that it has remained as we remember, that the people and place are the same, though we have changed. The comfort we may seek in reliving memories is elusive. You can return home or revisit relationships however, and discover how much things have changed and remained the same. Continue reading →

Tagged Coming Out, Exes, Family, Fathers, LGBTQ, Loss, Love, Marriage, Mothers, Racine, Relationships, Stories

Feb 16 2014

1 Comment

Posts

Musings on a Year of Writing

“I’ve learned that by the practice of writing with intention, discipline, and passion, I became a writer.”

This past week marks a year, the anniversary, the birthday of this blog. I’ve been writing as an avocation for over 35 years, beginning with poetry, followed by recovery journals, stand-up comedy and monologue scripts, memoir writing, and finally as an activist-essayist. Since starting this blog and maintaining a practice of writing at least weekly, I’ve become the thing I’ve been doing. I’m a writer. Continue reading →

Tagged AA, Activism, Avocation, Family, Freelance, Journaling, Memoir, Personal Narratives, Poetry, Recovery, Stories, Storyteller, Vocation, Work, Writing

Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! – A place where words, this writer, and readers play together.

How friends, family and food feed the spirit.