ArcaMax

In a sea of blue, he was the green dot, packed in the rows with everyone else. He hissed, "You didn't tell me I had to wear my dress blues." I hissed back, "I didn't know that."

I can't remember the details of the event or why he needed to be there, but I remember that my father showed up. He sat with me, stone-faced with embarrassment and ...Read more

An older gentleman in a well-used pickup pulled up in front of our driveway as we were setting up Halloween decor on our porch. My husband told me later that he thought it might be someone I knew or who might have something to do with my campaign for city council. But the gentleman was working on another campaign of sorts, one that involved ...Read more

Well, that was the strangest job interview ever.

A few weeks ago, someone slyly asked me if I'd be writing about the campaign experience, and I vigorously nodded. Of course, a campaign has so much fodder for a series of columns, and now the call can come from inside the house. Or better, I'm calling from the porch of the house of mirrors that I...Read more

The threatening cold front was coming two days later, but that Saturday morning, it was absolutely beautiful. We decided to walk to the nearby hospital to get a flu shot.

There's an initiative every year that my family and I enjoy, and it has almost now become a tradition. Local hospitals team up to offer free flu vaccines in October, a program...Read more

I'm unsure when my avian shift started, from being a night owl to turning into one of those early birds. The latter having no designated animal feels right; it allows a wide-open possibility of what you might become beyond the sunrise. It could be a hawkish day, or it could be a day where you stick your head in the sand.

In high school and ...Read more

The wind had picked up; it was supposed to be a breezy night. I rolled down my car windows and ordered my Route 44 Coke Zero to take a breather. I heard him first, speaking loudly to no one, as he came around my car toward the bench in the grassy area in front of angle cars in the drive-in parking.

He was hunched over, shirtless, carrying a ...Read more

It's a terrible vice. I wake up and pretty much immediately scroll through the news and the emails that show who doesn't sleep and which brands want to bug you before you've had your coffee. It was then I read that Sen. Dianne Feinstein had passed away.

Perhaps I shouldn't admit that I'm not a huge fan of reading biographies and don't spend my ...Read more

It's really easy to complain on Facebook and offer no solutions. It's a touch harder to speak directly to the city council and air your grievances. It's harder still to go to the town hall filled with armed police to point fingers and explain that your tax dollars pay for their salary.

It was the city's second police town hall. As I settled in ...Read more

It was the squeals of the two women that caught my attention first. They were cheering on a pigtailed girl on the kiddo swing, the swing where you stick your feet through and the seat wraps around your waist. The women, maybe mom and aunt, hooted and reminded the girl to stretch her legs out as she swung forward to gain momentum. It was a ...Read more

You can never know who is behind the door, but you try to take the cues from the yard. There are the homes with the porch add-ons you know were made by weekend warriors. You see the American-flavored decor or the lack of any personalization with patches of dead grass. I always appreciate an overabundance of gnomes because of the mismatched ...Read more

One of the most desirable examples of magic from the "Harry Potter" series wasn't a spell. It was the Time-Turner, a necklace with which one could reverse time by twirling an hourglass. This was how the studious character Hermione could attend multiple classes at one time; her intellect wouldn't be hampered by something as silly as there being ...Read more