Bad Company

Lily comes out of retirement to run one last op while on the run from her former employers in U.S. intelligence, but also to reexamine her legacy as a field agent and as an American in foreign lands. Throughout her career she was known as frequently impulsive and even insubordinate, but also an effective and […]

Logging and Blogging

I’ve become a little obsessed with logging my activities. My FitBit is already logging my sleep, heart rate, and steps I have taken, and I add in my walks, PT and free weights workouts, weight and blood pressure over time. I’ve already blogged about my Goodreads account, where I sometimes add ratings and reviews but […]

My favorite author

I started reading Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski series because my mom was a fan. I particularly remember when she read Tunnel Vision (1994) and was fascinated with the lower bowels of Chicago, a network of utility and freight tunnels beneath the Loop. I have her copy of the short story collection Windy City Blues (1995), […]

theater seats

My time as a theater correspondent

Aunt Pam recently sent me two packets of letters, postcards, drawings and photos that I had sent her over the last 40 years. I’m happy to say I was delighted by my youthful musings more often than I was embarrassed. The letters cover my childhood in Donovan, my time at IMSA and Connecticut College, and […]

Vancouver

I just returned from Vancouver, British Columbia! What an amazing trip. A few months ago I was feeling nervous about international solo travel and the Global Scrum Gathering conference, wondering if I would be too shy to meet people or my knee too stiff to do all the adventuring I wanted. But I overcame both […]

My cats

I enjoyed making my last post a collection of photos, and uploading photos to Flickr that had been sitting on my phone and computer. So here are some of my favorite photos of my cats over the years:

Botanical gardens

I am not certain when I first became interested in botanical gardens, but I have been visiting and photographing them for many years. Here are some of my favorite places and photos: Connecticut College Arboretum — I was lucky enough to attend college in the midst of this beautiful arboretum that surrounds the campus. I […]

Self portraits

Simon is a high school sophomore and just started taking a graphic design class—I’m so excited! Since he’s learning to use Illustrator, I showed him the drawing above, which I made with the pen tool based on a webcam selfie in 2002. He was actually a bit impressed, high praise from a teen to his […]

John Prine

Last night I was lucky to attend a screening of the concert film/tribute You Got Gold at the Music Box with my friend Web, thanks to the generosity of a stranger with 2 extra tickets to the sold-out screening. It was an excellent and emotional film followed by a live interview with John’s wife Fiona […]