The military just released declassified video of unidentified flying objects it has filmed over the years. The video, sadly, was rather underwhelming. What I saw was a mix of circular blobs and geometrically unimpressive aerial triangles moving really fast through the sky. I guess the aliens don’t have cloaking devices or don’t care if we […]

There was the time, I was probably 9 years old and made Nana’s recipe for whoopee pies. Her recipe called them Black Moons. The yield was four dozen. And you know, there are two cakes to each, so there were 96. They smelled delicious and looked just right as they cooled. My brother, Russ, took […]

I was listening to an audible book and dozing off when my iPhone rang. Usually I look to see if I know the number. I answered in a slight fog. Mistake No. 1. The voice on the other end said he was calling from Apple. Someone was using my identity to try to make purchases […]

Mistakes. My writing brims with them. Typos. Invented words. Thoughtful substitutions made by the AI which rob the line of sense. “Not” for “bot.” “Withering” for “hithering.” “Affectopm” for “affection.” Stubbed grammar also spots and rends. An unclosed quotation mark means the copy runs on forever. Ill, I’ll be. Were we where we’re wore? Fast […]

I was 11 years old. I was just starting to feel a little bit haughty about my worldly knowledge and was just dipping my toe into that span of time when kids cause adults to take up teeth grinding. I was realizing that I wasn’t a little kid anymore, and I was almost in junior […]

As a young woman, I had always liked the idea of dressing in vintage clothing for a special occasion. That occasion presented itself one day. A friend, a Bates graduate, was going to have a dinner party at her home in Lewiston. Among her guests were friends and professors from Bates, so I was expecting […]