#LoveThyNeighbor I am not Jewish. Either by birth or religion. Still, I felt compelled to attend last night’s public memorial for eleven people who were murdered in a Squirrel Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh, PA. The service was held at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum, where thousands packed the Read more…
First came the stealthy knock, carried out under cover of darkness. Then the sound of footsteps, running away from the house. And then, the horrible message: “TRUMP is our president now. Get out of our neighborhood now FAGGOTS!!” I hate that word. I refuse to utter it and hate to Read more…
That’s some powerful positive thinking going on, and it’s what one reader told me in a message a couple of days ago. Oddly enough, I woke up this morning feeling the same way, that belief having taken root in my brain. I sat up in bed and realized that today Read more…
It was almost midnight when she made her entrance, the beautiful, fair-skinned blonde with a red flower in her hair. Unlike most of the women I saw on the streets of Morgantown last night, she wore slacks. Not a sequined miniskirt. Three men, possibly of Pakistani descent, in a nearby Read more…
Sometimes they’re angry and sometimes they’re sad. Many times they simply want to ask if I’m happy now. Or say they hope I am. These are my readers, and they are men. They are the men who read my memoir, Sister of Silence. Not a few of them were once Read more…
Pat Benatar, or her songwriter, really got it right. It is a war out there, and people in love are on the front lines. Like wounded soldiers, thousands fall every day, bloody and bruised. Unable to get back up. People in relationships where love is alive take bullets for their Read more…
In January, my friend Sheila and I went to Mexico for our mutual friend Olga’s wedding. We knew a little Spanish, but not much. An hour after our plane landed, we got into a car with two men, strangers we had never met, and began a one-hour journey to our Read more…