I’m sitting at my laptop, my aromatic lavender and cedar candle burning brightly. As I’m compulsively checking my email, a subject line instantly hooks me: “Attackers got thwopped.” I coined the term “thwop” in my book “Beauty Bites Beast.” In the book, I wonder why there’s a word for a viol…

Florynce Kennedy, the late, great feminist and civil rights attorney, once said, “There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina. All other jobs should be open to everybody.”

After gloating about our room-temperature Christmas weather here in Altadena, my sister, Mary — who lives in Rapid City, South Dakota — almost hung up on me. Telling her I could smell lemon blossoms was kind of mean. Considering it was double-digits below zero in the Black Hills near where s…

Writing a weekly column is a privilege. It’s also sometimes a pain in the patoot. Imagine having to come up with topics that might interest someone other than yourself. I sit in my office chair daydreaming, staring out the window, hoping for crows to visit our fountain. I am dithering, barel…

Pencil poised, I lick the tip and wonder, “Why do people lick the tips of pencils?” See how deep I can be? In 2016, after Hillary’s loss to the Orange Foolius, I desperately needed to do something to distract myself. I straightened up my office in late November. When I straighten anything, i…

If you’re a Santa worshipper, stop reading now as I’m not of your tribe. Lest you think I’m simply a curmudgeonly Santa-phobic crackpot, let me give you some background about why I go on my annual anti-Santa rants.

Pasadena Community Police Academy is waiting for you

In 1963, I was in third grade at Wilson Elementary School in the tiny South Dakota town of Huron. My classroom had green chalkboards, and I could always smell the chalk dust. The portraits of white male presidents surrounded the room; no wonder we grew up with the idea that only white men co…

‘V’ for victim

Darkness surrounds our entryway as we negotiate four overjoyed, hungry dogs. How dare we be out past their dinner time? The smell of canned dog food makes me unusually queasy as I dish up their meals. 

Thanksgiving is a day of gratitude that capitalists have not managed to co-opt like other significant holidays… and for that, I am grateful! However, I have a Thanksgiving practice I do every day. I recommend it, and here’s how it works: Each day, our group of Landmark Wisdom Course grads — …

Squirming, I agreed to review the new book “Music Mavens: 15 Women of Note in the Industry,” by Ashley Walker and Maureen Charles. I have known one of the co-authors for years, and her late husband, Jon Charles, for even longer. I prayed to Euterpe, music’s muse: “Please, please, please let …

Now that many of us have dipped our big toe back into social engagements, I was at an event, sitting next to someone I didn’t know but had heard of: “Emma Empowerment” (not her real name). She’s a pillar of several communities that empower women and girls. She asked what I do, and I said, “I…

In a sudden flurry of #MeToo reminiscences, after three decades, I finally decided to write to my groper:

Worthy idea; bad measure

It’s a slow, sweet and thankfully cool Sunday in Southern California. My hairdresser, Susann Edmunds, and I have been seeing each other for 20-plus years and have bonded over many things, yet I still manage to surprise her.

Will Rogers famously said, “If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die, I want to go where they went.” Yes! My husband and I have rescue dogs, a.k.a. kids. I have always had three dogs, ranging from young to middle aged and old, and that is by design. I don’t want to grieve a dog withou…