Stranded

This, too, is travel:
I’m eating the chocolate cookie they gave me when I checked in at the business man’s special, a Holiday Inn or Ramada, one of those.  Not far from the airport, where I was stranded all afternoon.  Some plane didn’t make it for hours and hours, and it stranded lots of us.   The [...]

Santa Barbara Harbor and the girls in the basement

For the past three days, as I showered, or chatted with a student or another writer, or walked from one hotel to the other, the girls in the basement have kept up a little series of nudges.  “Now? Can we come out and talk now?”  
Teaching, however, takes a lot of heart energy, mind energy, and [...]

California dreamin’…tidbits

Celebrity sighting today: John McCain, no more than 20 feet from the room where we were about to begin our memoir class.  He is very small.  I’m not sure why that surprised me so much, but it did. 
For those looking for the voice worksheet, find it here: http://my.sbwriters.com/profile/BarbaraSamuel
I’m blogging tomorrow (Wednesday) at Writer Unboxed.  A [...]

More things I like about California

A mellow day, the calm before the fierceness of teaching and talking to come.   I walked down to the faculty meeting and then caught a ride back with the wonderful Mary Hershey , who is teaching humor at this conference.   I worked for awhile on class materials, making sure everything is in shape for tomorrow, [...]

Extravagant California

I landed in Santa Barbara this afternoon.  I’m here for the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, but this year decided to stay somewhere outside the hermetically perfect conference hotel.   I’m about a mile up the beach, just right.  My room overlooks the pool. This afternoon, I set out on foot in the deep heat (93 degrees, which [...]

Standing still

On our last morning in New York, I took a quick look around, at the black and white wallpaper and the framed vintage magazine prints and the chandaliers made of plastic beads and thought, as I did several times over our stay,  “I wish I could stay in this happy moment a little bit longer.”
But [...]

A parental moment of delight

Indulge me.
Here he is, last Wednesday.  (Is that the expression of an adoring grandmother or what?)
Not the easiest child to raise, mainly because he was smarter than me from the moment he arrived on the planet.  Questing. Intense. From the first moment he raised his eyes to mine in the delivery room, calmly and with [...]

A rainy night in Chelsea

My whole family has come to New York to help me celebrate my son’s graduation from NYU.  The big surprise is how my father fits in here, a big Irish talker, chatting up the waitresses and talking to all the cops and the cab drivers and joining right in with all the commentary of the [...]

If I were in charge of medals

The ranch I visited last week was purchased a chunk at a time by a single minded man who wanted to make sure the land doesn’t all end up as houses (or other such land-devouring things). It’s now a substantial spread, 5000 acres, and you get the feeling as he drives you around [...]

Sari Dreams

Colourful Rajasthan — Rainbow Colours #1
Originally uploaded by d.kumar

Last night, I dreamed I was wearing a sari. It was pink silk, embroidered with gold and green, and I was so happy to realize that having it on must mean I had finally made it to India.
No surprise. Anthony Bourdain when to Mumbai and [...]

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