Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Nov 26, 2009, 12:46 pm
I finished the first draft. My husband defended his dissertation. I am typing in a sun-filled room, buoyed by three sleeping, contented kitties. The laptop has been around almost six years and is ...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Nov 24, 2009, 12:07 pm
Part I: The visit Look. I’m all out of words. They started drifting away from me this morning, when I woke up with the boy at six a.m. As the day continued – conversation with the visito...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Nov 19, 2009, 11:36 pm
Tom cups his hands around the egg, his square palms and stubby fingers keeping it safe. He finds eggs fascinating, the weight they hold when they are fresh, uncooked, the way hard-boiling changes thei...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Nov 16, 2009, 11:07 pm
There was an oak tree just outside the back window. Brown leaves clung to it through the winter, unwilling to sever their ties until they were forced out by new growth. Some nights, when I was tired o...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Nov 14, 2009, 8:44 am
... a good boy.” That seemed reckless to me, letting the boy touch him. Didn't Joe remember the heavy quality of dead flesh? Once the heart stops, it's like petting wax. But the boy d...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Nov 10, 2009, 2:00 pm
I flicked a career away as easily as I tossed down shots of vodka. The brown shoes and heavy overcoat, the thick wool suit in regulation blue, opaque hosiery that marked red rails around my waist, tha...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Nov 5, 2009, 8:33 am
It started with Maggie May's post on how one could possibly cope with losing a child. Or maybe it started before then, in my first grief at nine over the death of my grandmother, the grief that mo...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Oct 30, 2009, 8:54 am
J. had a freezer full of goose breasts riddled with shot. His family owned property on Broad Creek with a duck blind right against the water, where the menfolk, clad in camouflage, would sit on brisk ...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Oct 28, 2009, 8:00 am
The house teeters above you in a nimbus of red light. A pillar of cracked, uneven steps capped by burning jack-o-lanterns ends at the front door, where cackles and howls animate the night air. “...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Oct 24, 2009, 9:14 pm
It was one of those conversations that I'm tired of having, but I couldn't seem to stop myself. Mr. Trinkle and I were standing against the wall at the Fox Theater in Oakland, this over-the-t...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Oct 21, 2009, 1:14 pm
Here was the scene: my four-year-old son wearing a pair of old high heels, a canary-yellow birthday party hat on his head, grasping a sword in either hand. It was another one of his many guises, a fu...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Oct 17, 2009, 7:36 am
Surely there are hidden meanings everywhere, waiting to be uncovered. This was my hypothesis when I started my latest self-improvement project “Barbara’s Weekly Epiphany.” All I had ...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Oct 12, 2009, 1:29 pm
In my dreams, the dead are silent. I’ve never had a good conversation with a single one of them, just offer my apologies, bake the bread, pour the coffee. What is the guilt about? The dead no lo...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Oct 10, 2009, 5:13 am
Guess how old I am today? Just add one to this number. I'm fine with it. Really. Image: Me in 1970 at Hollywood Beach.
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Oct 3, 2009, 7:29 pm
The story was that he and Willard were drunk when they poured the foundation. It was a hot day, unusual for May, and the sky was cloud-veiled, the sun nothing but a glowing round cloaked in grey. The ...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Sep 28, 2009, 12:14 pm
Back when I was dating my opposite, the racist homophobic conservative hunter J., I was a regular reader of Gourmet magazine. I would prepare special meals for J., smoked salmon ravioli, pissalidi&egr...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Sep 22, 2009, 11:30 am
One theory is that Nick suffers from existential angst, though I personally think he misses the stalking and the killing. He got out by mistake a few weeks ago, pushed his way through an unlatched bac...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Sep 12, 2009, 3:38 pm
Forgive me fellow bloggers, for I have sinned. I did not intend to leave this blog for almost a month while I frittered away five weeks with my son. My mother visited for ten days and I did not blog. ...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Aug 14, 2009, 10:57 pm
But first, a preface to the crumb. I haven't been here lately. My son is out of school until after Labor Day and we've had a series of pet-related good things and bad things. Cat dying: bad....
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Aug 10, 2009, 8:42 am
Ah, La Belette Rouge! She has tempted me with her language, with posts that are witty and thoughtful, where the words seem to flow effortlessly. Whether it's post- or pre-mortems of her Thursdays ...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Jul 14, 2009, 12:32 am
The title of this post has nothing to do with anything. It's a song by a band called Morphine, mellow with erotic undertones (to listen, click here), that makes me think of the summer of 1998, whe...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Jul 9, 2009, 10:50 pm
Sidney enjoying the yard, late June 2009. He showed up at a coworker's back door on New Year's Day 1995, a half-grown kitten who needed to get out of the Columbus, Ohio chill. The kitty was c...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Jul 8, 2009, 2:13 pm
If it wasn't frozen, processed, or heavily laced with sugar, my grandmother didn't cook it. I have her old recipe box, which includes many selections from the "Kitchen of Duncan Hines," as wel...
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Jennifer T. posted an article on writing to survive - Jun 30, 2009, 11:48 pm

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