Tag Archives: poetry
Found in an Unfiled Pile
Lately I have been doing some serious rearranging of stuff. Redecorating it isn’t, because I never decorated in the first place. I rarely rearrange either, because in my studio apartment there’s pretty much only one arrangement that accommodates all my … Continue reading
Rice
Almost every time I cook rice, I remember my mother warning me not to lift the lid while it was cooking because then it wouldn’t come out right. Somewhere along the way I got brave and discovered that this isn’t … Continue reading
Z is for Zoning #AtoZChallenge
When I moved to Martha’s Vineyard in 1985 I was as ignorant about zoning and land-use planning as I was about refuse disposal. (See “Unsustainable” for more about that.) My education started PDQ: In January of my first winter, I … Continue reading
W is for Wintertide Coffeehouse #AtoZChallenge
When I discovered, and promptly threw myself into, Wintertide, it was strictly a winter thing. It happened at the off-season youth hostel. Now I can’t remember whether this was during my first year-round winter (1985/86) or my second. I’ve been … Continue reading
T is for Theater #AtoZChallenge
The late Mary Payne (1932–1996), founder and longtime director of Island Theatre Workshop (ITW), was utterly shameless about drafting people into theater (or theatre — you choose). I was one of them. She needed help with PR. She knew I … Continue reading
P is for Poetry #AtoZChallenge
“I came to work on my novel.” It was a total cliché at the time — everyone, it seemed, came to Martha’s Vineyard to work on a novel. A few years later it was a screenplay they were working on, but … Continue reading
L is for Lesbian #AtoZChallenge
WARNING: The first several paragraphs of this post rely heavily on “Gay on MV,” a personal history that I posted here in June 2015. This post, in keeping with my theme for the A to Z Challenge, focuses more on … Continue reading
K is for Keys #AtoZChallenge
When I moved here in 1985, maybe the most startling difference between Martha’s Vineyard and the city I’d just left was that on the Vineyard hardly anybody locked anything. If you peered into the cars parked on Main Street or … Continue reading
J is for Junk Food #AtoZChallenge
My recollection is that in my D.C. days I lived pretty much on Roy Rogers fried chicken and fries, varying it with the occasional burger. This recollection is certainly erroneous. I was baking bread regularly, so I must have made … Continue reading
H is for Housing #AtoZChallenge
Around 1983, when I was still living in D.C., I read a story in (IIRC) the Washington Post‘s Sunday magazine about the housing situation on Cape Cod. Landlords wanted to get top dollar during “the season” (usually June through September), so … Continue reading
From the Seasonally Occupied Territories . . . 