The feel of home

The small, rural San Joaquin Valley town where I grew up is not a place that garners much national press, at least as far as travel goes. Oh, there’s an article in Saveur here, or a few blurbs in AAA’s Via magazine there—even a one-off “36 Hours in Fresno” in The New York Times—but the Central Valley […]

Originally posted on The Other Courtney:
Irrational fears are something I spent a good portion of my time in therapy talking about. After a few months and several hundred dollars, my irrational fears no longer caused panic attacks and I was even able to laugh at them! Sometimes I catch myself slipping into my old…

Originally posted on Subject Obscura:
With one click of the mouse, I became a collector. I bought a second typewriter. The new: Olympia Model “S” I bought my first typewriter in October 2011. Goodwill opened a store in the area, which my partner and I promptly checked out. It turned out to be a well-planned…

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has to be one of my favorite places on Earth, particularly come feeding time in the Open Sea exhibit when the tuna FOOM! up like rockets for the food. The story of this vagabond octopus staying hidden for a year in another exhibit, snacking on crabs in the meantime, tickled me […]

Minnesota poetry walk

One brisk, golden day, my friend Shona and I set out to realize one of my longtime dreams: tracking down my favorite Everyday Poems for City Sidewalk in St. Paul, Minnesota. Ever since I first read about the public-arts project years ago in the Christian Science Monitor, I’ve wanted to stroll those sidewalks myself. Judging from […]