Things come to me at night. Some of my best songs came to me in a dream, literally. I dreamed up the name of my band (“Hot Wave”), and I’ve dreamed up solutions to issues I’m having. For example, I dreamed about the best way to install a hair dryer/curler thing on the wall, or should I say ceiling, of my bathroom. Might not sound like a big deal but there’s hardly any room in there. Me and my room...

KNOCK KNOCK

The whole goddamn reason I moved out here is so that no one could knock on my door.

First off, this woke me up. I was having a great snooze in my easy chair with Pumpkin on my lap, feet up on the ottoman. The television flickered in the living room, lighting up the walls with a blue, pulsing glow.

KNOCK KNOCK

Secondly, there is a big, plain, obvious sign on the front of my door tha...

It’s amazing, really, a human’s ability to carve out a safe and comfortable space for themself in the midst of utterly inhospitable environments. As part of Life On Earth, humans wound up in some of the most unpleasant, hostile environments you could think of. And yet, with the help of other humans, they would inevitably find a way to create shelter, to harvest food and animals (bugs included), to...

I stomp stage left and swing my feather boa dramatically around my neck, glancing back at my onstage husband, Ronald, giving him a look that could kill.

“All this time, Ronald. How could you?”

He approaches but I turn away, sticking my nose defiantly up in the air.

“Helen, I-“

Before he gets his sentence out, I spin around and slap him across the face. The audience gasps. The slap is a bit ha...

For the fifth Halloween in a row, it rained. Not a heavy rain, but a consistent, mild drizzle all day long and late into the night. The be-costumed children of Bitty were found yet again gazing out of their windows, faces fogging up the glass, praying that the rain would stop so they could go out trick-or-treating in their full costume, without an umbrella or rain boots.

And yet they were used t...