Adolescence
“Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, lemme tell you. Those are big years. Everybody always thinks of it as adolescence—just getting through to the real part of your life—but it’s more than that. Sometimes your whole life happens in those years, and the rest of your life it’s just the same story playing out with different characters. I could die tomorrow and have lived the main ups and downs of life. Pain. Loss. Love. And what you all so fondly refer to as wisdom.” Lidia Yuknavitch, Dora: A Headcase We’ve all heard school reunion stories about the nerd who’s now a...
Read MoreWriting
“To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.” Phyllis Theroux With so many venues open for the world to reach us today – email, twitter, texting, fax, phone, newspaper, television, internet, etc., why do we work so intently to screen, delete, expunge, edit, cancel and eliminate 99% of information from reaching us? Because it arrives uninvited and unwanted. Yet, who among us would toss away a handwritten letter unopened? (Savvy direct mail marketers learned this secret over two decades ago and began using handwritten fonts for junk mail, but we soon...
Read MoreFan Fandango
On a par with handkerchief flirting, we present the fluttering fan. It provides a perfect foil from whence the shy can seek shelter and the ardent arouse passion. From coquette to vixen, ingénue to vamp, a huntress skilled at the game of flirting can drop her prey with a flick of the wrist. “The eyes are one of the most powerful tools a wom an can have. With one look, she can relay the most intimate message. After the connection is made, words cease to exist.” Jennifer Salaiz (The lady in gold is from a Russian website and I apologize, but I do not read Russian, so cannot give an...
Read MoreSea Creatures
“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you’ve been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.” Dave Barry Methinks the aforementioned master of mirth has a point, so let’s dive and delve beneath the briny deep to greet some of nature’s fascinating creatures, like those pictured above hiding in the kelp. The enchanting and engaging seahorse is featured in countless...
Read MorePrincess Nyabongo
If you’ve read Parisian Romance you’ve already encountered at least one of these handkerchiefs. They have such an interesting provenance, however, I decided to give them their own mini-blog. Often when I present to audiences, I explain I feel as though I’m on a Search and Rescue Mission to save these small harbingers of history. Needless to say, there are thousands of us Search and Rescue folks around the world, and I recently met two more, a couple from Tennessee from whom I purchased these hankies. When I spied this bold and brilliant admonition “It’s Never Too Late” (what a great...
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