Loose Leaf Notes

“I have two ears, and they both hear something different, and I’m in the middle.” ~ Richie Havens at The Lyric, Blacksburg, Virginia.   Red and ornate, The Lyric Theatre in Blacksburg reminds me of the old Boston City Music Hall where, during the 1970s, I heard Jessie Colin Young, Sly and the Family Stone, […]

I originally posted this photo, the front window of my Asheville potter son’s warehouse studio/ living space, on January 8, and asked, “How much is that pot in the window?” Yesterday my son called and gave me the answer; $400. It’s all one piece (the pots are glued onto wood) and has been purchased by […]

There’s a word on a Draper Street sidewalk in Blacksburg carved in cement that I love. It says WORD. I wondered then and I continue to wonder who carved it there and why. Maybe someone always wanted to carve a word in wet cement and so they did, literally. It makes me think about the […]

I used to think something was wrong with me, but now I just accept it. I’m not your hostess type. Burning pots on the stove and letting the housework go while being distracted by poetry is something I’ve always been upfront about and even confessed to in my wedding vows when my husband and I […]

1. The downside of country life in Floyd? My friend, Doug, thinks it’s having no Chinese take-out. He also said this at lunch recently: “You have to work twice as hard for half as much money, but it costs 1/3 less to live here.” You do the math. I’m hoping it all balances out. 2. […]

Names fascinate me. They add color to a place and time, whether in stories or in real life. In “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy names like Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo, and Aragorn stir the imagination. In the adventures of King Arthur, it was Lancelot, Galahad, Gawaiin, and Guinevere. Recently, over at Simply Wait, Patry, a […]

We both enjoy the goofy, the gooey, and the giddy. Meet my nephew, Patrick, also known as “My Little Prodigy.” Every one in our family says that, apart from our hair coloring being different, he looks just like me when I was his age. This past December when I was home for my father’s funeral, […]

Enclosed in the package was a CD of photos and a small 3×3 note cut from a framing mat that read: I wish I had written you a long letter telling you how much I love you. Instead I wrote a little note that said the same thing. I love you, mom. But I didn’t […]

The following are my answers to interview questions posed by Jake from the Jake Silver Show: 1. When do you first recall wanting to be a writer and what inspired that? I began writing Bob Dylan-inspired poetry as a teenager in my bedroom and then “letters to the editor” for local newspapers. As a young […]

AKA: The Bride and Big Foot ~ I drove into town on Tuesday to hang flyers for Saturday’s Spoken Word Night and to pass out brochures for my cousin Tammy, who is promoting an ICAN Birth Expo in Roanoke this coming April. My first stop was the Harvest Moon Health Food store, a grand central […]

1. I’ve been signing my name xocolleen for a long time now. My spell check wants me to change it to xerox. 2. I’m thinking of buying some jewelry tools. I sold mine when I started doing foster care work 8 years ago, but I’m not doing that much anymore. The idea is to make […]