Tomorrow will mark the first anniversary of my blog. Today I have decided to do a little retrospective of the year, in photos. As those who have been with me from day one might recall, I didn’t know how to load photos onto the blog in the beginning, so I wrote these rather long-winded entries and was in danger of running out of stuff to write about by week two. Thankfully, I learned how to load the photos and the blog has survived! Here are some of my favorite blog moments in pictures.

Thanks to all of you who read, comment or email me each day. I had no intention of starting a blog last year. I only did it at the suggestion of my publisher. Now I love to blog and have come to think of many of my readers as friends Keep those comments coming. XO Ann

May 12

May 22


May 23

June 30

August 4

Also August

September 12

September 19

September 22

September 22

October 25

November 2

November 2

December 6

Finally, two great souls who are missed:

May 4

October 7

I was stranded, with my fellow JetBlue passengers, on a tarmac in DC last night because all the New York airports were closed due to heavy fog. I was on my way back from Florida where I had gone with my sister to visit my father and his lovely wife Terry. My sister Meg took a different flight back to Boston. My flight was supposed to land in NY at 7:00 but at 7:45 we were still flying.

“Visibility is poor,” the pilot kept announcing as we circled above the northeast with hundreds of other planes. It was hard to believe, because where we were, soaring motionlessly in that roaring jet, high above a bank of rolling white clouds, you could see stratified plateaus of pink and blue that stretched for what seemed like hundreds of miles of space. You could see nothing solid, just color, but it was everywhere, and so clear and bright. Below those perfectly innocent looking clouds was a grey, thick mass that would prevent us from finding a safe landing strip in New York. So we flew to DC and hung out on a tarmac with a dozen or so other jets. Waiting for visibility to return to New York. And it did become visible in New York, eventually.

It occurred to me, sitting on that tarmac, listening to babies cry and old people shout into their cellphones, that families of origin are complicated destinations to depart from.

Meg and I had gone to see my dad this weekend because he was performing in a play. He was a fantastic Colonel Pickering in a production of My Fair Lady at a community theater near his home in Florida. Really, he stole the show. He’s in his seventies but he acts in plays, does yoga, plays tennis, kayaks and hikes.

He and Terry lived on an island off Washington for years, so we didn’t get to see them very often. Now that he’s on the eastern side of the country, hopefully we’ll see them more. But there’s a gulf between us, created together, its murky depths filled with memories, both good and bad. Childhood trips, family pets, divorce, and then the acting-out years (both his and mine). It’s more of a drainage ditch than a gulf, really, filled with treasures and wreckage, the flotsam and jetsam of two lives biologically and cosmically linked. My dad and I share some physical traits, quirky senses of humor, nervous conditions, the tendency to squint and frown. We try to understand each other. We both want to forgive and to be forgiven, I think, but for what? Where would we begin?

The lights on the tarmac when we finally descended into New York were blurred by the rain and they flashed beneath us in fiery streaks when we landed. I drove home at midnight. My daughter had waited up to see me. I was so happy to be home.
For some reason, I find this poem fitting. I dedicate it to my father:

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

I’m going to be away from my computer for the weekend, so am leaving you with some beautiful photos sent to me from Kathie, our blog friend from Alaska.



Here’s what she had to say about them:
“Hi Ann, I thought you would enjoy a couple pics of the infamous Mt. Redoubt….
It has a pattern of erupting every 20 yrs…It blew last in 1989/90 and was it a mess, so far this time, the ash seems to be floating in other directions, thank goodness…
The Mt is 50 miles away across the Cook Inlet from my house but we can see it very clearly from certain streets here in Soldotna…
Enjoy!!”
Thanks Kathie. They’re wonderful.

I drove up to feed the horses when I arrived home today but encountered a roadblock. Snoopy had let himself out (again) and decided to stop and inspect all cars approaching the barn.

I should open the farm up as some kind of wild animal theme park. People can drive through and feed the animals from the car. They can watch all sorts of hunting and stalking behavior between the canine and squirrel species. Maybe I can teach one of our many animals a trick. Nobody here knows any tricks. They let themselves in and out as they please and demand their meals be delivered in a timely fashion, but won’t offer up a paw or a whinny on command. We work and slave to feed all these animals and not one will perform a simple trick. Well, that’ll have to change once we start charging admission.

Cuddling is not a trick.

If you don’t like poems, or sex, read no further.

A Woman Waits for Me
by Walt Whitman

A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of
the right man were lacking.
Sex contains all, bodies, souls,
Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the
seminal milk,
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves,
beauties, delights of the earth,
All the governments, judges, gods, follow’d persons of the
earth,
These are contain’d in sex as parts of itself and justifications
of itself.
Without shame the man I like knows and avows the
deliciousness of his sex,
Without shame the woman I like knows and avows hers.
Now I will dismiss myself from impassive women,
I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those
women that are warm-blooded sufficient for me,
I see that they understand me and do not deny me,
I see that they are worthy of me, I will be the robust
husband of those women.
They are not one jot less than I am,
They are tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing
winds,
Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength,
They know how to swim, row, ride, wrestle, shoot, run,
strike, retreat, advance, resist, defend themselves,
They are ultimate in their own right–they are calm, clear,
well-possess’d of themselves.
I draw you close to me, you women,
I cannot let you go, I would do you good,
I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own
sake, but for others’ sakes,
Envelop’d in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.
It is I, you women, I make my way,
I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you,
I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,
I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these
States, I press with slow rude muscle,
I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,
I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long
accumulated within me.
Through you I drain the pent-up rivers of myself,
In you I wrap a thousand onward years,
On you I graft the grafts of the best-beloved of me and
America,
The drops I distil upon you shall grow fierce and athletic
girls, new artists, musicians, and singers,
The babes I beget upon you are to beget babes in their turn,
I shall demand perfect men and women out of my love-
spendings,
I shall expect them to interpenetrate with others, as I and
you interpenetrate now,
I shall count on the fruits of the gushing showers of them, as
I count on the fruits of the gushing showers I give now,
I shall look for loving crops from the birth, life, death,
immortality, I plant so lovingly now.

Guadalupe just sent me a link to some very old photos she found of Denis and me on the web. I have to share this one.

It looks like I was midway through my sex change from man to woman. You’d think Denis might have suggested something with sleeves to cover those Popeye arms. I swear, I never took steroids. It was from pushing a double stroller with those kids – at that age – up the steepest hill you can imagine at Riverside Park in Manhattan every day. I was always too impatient to let the kids walk, because their little legs didn’t move as fast as mine, so I pushed them and their friends around the city in a stroller until they were quite big. I think if we hadn’t moved to the country, I’d still be trotting them around town in some sort of rickshaw. You get some serious biceps and shoulders from all that pushing.

I love Jack’s movie star shades. We were at the opening of some kids’ movie.

I can’t stop staring at those arms. What a freak.

Here’s a link to a video of me with a very cute haircut I had at the time. I was still nursing, that’s why my breasts were so large.

I found another great vintage commercial. This one is about “Quick Curl Barbie and Mod Hair Ken.” My dad actually sported Mod Hair Ken’s look in the 70’s – he even had the mustache for a while. No, he’s not gay. I swear.

It took me a while to figure out why the narrator’s voice sounds so familiar. I think it’s Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer’s voice. Huh? Am I right?

I attended my step-brother’s wedding in Marblehead when I was in my twenties. I hadn’t lived in Marblehead for years and there were quite a few people I hadn’t seen since high school. I started talking with a girl I knew named Nancy. She recalled playing at my house when we were younger. “All you wanted to do was play with your Barbies and do pretend horse shows with all these Breyer horses you had collected,” she said. Breyer horses are plastic, model horses and the Barbie’s legs could be manipulated in such a way that they could sit astride them. We chuckled about this and she said, “I wonder how old we were? Six? Seven.”

Then it struck me. I hadn’t moved to Marblehead until the middle of 8th grade! We were at least 14 years old when I forced my few friends to play “Horse Show” with my Barbies.

I was a late bloomer. I’m always trying to reassure my kids about that, when they talk about some of their more successful friends. The school superstars. I was messing around with Barbies while my peers were writing award-winning essays that got them into elite boarding schools. I even had a Ken, but he wasn’t Barbie’s boyfriend. He was kind of a stablehand/love-slave. But I’ll have to save the details of that for my shrink.

Here’s the link for those who can’t see the embedded commercial.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z–ntETyNYo

I love the way the narrator is telling the 7-year-old girls what to pretend with their Barbies. “Put on Ken’s mustache and make him a villain! Take away the mustache, put on his sideburns and make him a hero!” Oh. Okay.

If I had narrated a Barbie commercial at that time, it would have sounded something like this: “Have Barbie ride a winning round” (show Barbie jumping a rigid plastic horse over Lincoln Log fences.) “Have Ken groom horses naked! Show Barbie’s dissatisfaction with his work by having her flog him with riding crop! Have naked, humbled Ken cover Barbie with kisses!”

Yup, that’s what happens when kids play with Barbies after a certain age. Really, take them away before your kids reach puberty.

Denis and I posed for the cover of American Dog Magazine and the photographer, Heather Green, took some great photos. I think the mag comes out soon. I can’t figure out how to load the cover photo, but here are some shots that didn’t make it into the mag. First, me and my beloved Daphne. She’s actually alive, just dozing with her eyes open. Also wish I could photoshop the breakfast stains from her beard. Sigh.

And the pack:

Finally, himself, with the elf:

Sorry about the size of these photos. Having a hard time figuring out how to adjust from jpegs that Heather sent.

We’re home now but I had so much fun touring schools and especially visiting Boston, my old home.

Yesterday, I was a member of a Q&A panel about writing and publishing. It was a part of a career symposium at Emerson College. The best thing about it was meeting two fantastic women and fellow authors. I flatter myself by calling them my fellows, as they are somewhat (okay, a lot) more accomplished as authors than I am. But they were great fun and lovely and I really enjoyed our discussion.

The other authors were Alice Hoffman and Kim McLarin. Alice and her husband Tom and I had lunch before the panel discussion and from the moment we sat down it was as if we had, all three, been lifelong friends. I loved them. Both so funny and down to earth. And then Kim, a writer in residence at Emerson, author, mother and host of a television show, was brilliant and wry and funny and also felt like an instant great friend.

Well, I had a wonderful time and hopefully the students liked it as well. We debated, beforehand, whether we should lie and tell the students that they (and we) will have books published for years to come, or tell them the truth – that the publishing business is barely holding itself together with baling twine – if you possess any other skills, hone those now. We went with a sort of glossed-over truth. Keep writing. Don’t think too much about what’s happening to the industry. People will always buy books. There was much bemoaning of the invention of the Kindle amongst the audience, and I had to come clean about how mine is perhaps my most cherished piece of personal property.

On the subject of Kindle, I have been trying to download books and have found that the Kindle library is quite limited. There is not a single book by Saul Bellow available on Kindle. Basically, you can download most popular fiction and nonfiction published in the last couple of years, and then most of the great classics. The classics are cheap. Madame Bovary cost me 99 cents. Books by Proust, Flaubert, Tolstoy are sold on Kindle much as they would be sold on a card table on Broadway – dirt cheap but without the torn dust jackets and musty odors.

At our very swanky hotel, the housekeepers place a card with a quotation on the guests’ pillows during the “turndown service.” That phrase has always struck me as odd. “Would you like turndown service?” a pretty young woman will ask, after rousing me out of bed (I go to bed too early for some hotels).

“No thanks, I don’t need to be turned down tonight.”

Anyway, the quote awaiting me on my pillow last night was, “A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another’s.” Jean Paul Richter

This is so true in life, but a stumbling block, I think, for writers at times.