So, as I said in the last post, faced with the choice of security or a very dicey route home through the hills, I chose the latter. If you’e2’80’99ve read A Grave Talent, you’e2’80’99ll have had a taste of what our storms do to the hills. And in fact, my friend Laura Crum used that…

The storms seem to have stopped here for the time being, which means the central California coast is flowering in that brief period between the rain season and the fog season. Those of us on hills can do a survey (cautiously’e2’80’94the poison oak is out) to see if there are any ominous stretch marks in…

The Roman Catholics this week are choosing a pope, to replace the one who traveled the world talking to people. Perhaps this time they might do well to choose a man who travels the world listening to people. If there is any meaning at all in the Christian message (and because you are sure to…

My friend Ayelet Waldman recently started writing a bimonthly column for the e-magazine Salon.com, opening with a chilling description of how her now-defunct blog (still up at Bad Mother) became a means of communicating suicidal thoughts. I have no wish to comment on that here, aside from noting that the very idea of being so…

There are now so many segments on the evening news that I can’e2’80’99t bear to watch, I might as well just stay in the kitchen and see to whatever is on the stove. The magazines and newspapers are no better: I close Time with half the articles unread, I turn briskly past the Smithsonian article…

Comments and questions that have accumulated on Post Its around the edge of my Mac until I can’e2’80’99t see the screen any more: Yes, the launch date of Locked Rooms has been shifted back a week, to the 22nd of June, not the 29th. Sorry, everyone who used ink to write it on their calendar,…

I hope none of you mind awfully, but I have come to the realization that I need to do something different with my life, and ‘e2’80’9cIf ‘e2’80’98twere done, best ‘e2’80’98twere done quickly.’e2’80’9d Thus I have the duty to announce that following the publication of Locked Rooms in June, I shall be working on the last…

I’e2’80’99ve always been the repairman in the family. Which may introduce the topic of inclusive language, but suffice it to say, for some purposes (generally these include felicity of language) I don’e2’80’99t mind being referred to as ‘e2’80’9cman’e2’80’9d rather than ‘e2’80’9cperson.’e2’80’9d My husband grew up in India where there was an appropriate servant caste for…

It was a lovely morning, and the carnage of my patch of succulents was complete, with only one or two hen-and-chickens hunkering down beneath the reach of the iron tines of the rakes. I was sore wroth. One of the neighbors (not the ex-berry farmer) happened to be out in her vineyard that morning and…

The heart bleeds at times, considering the amount of effort taken up in the daily life of bureaucratic nonsense. Take my driveway, for example. I live at the end of a very long road on top of a tall hill. One of the neighbors rents out her property to one farmer or another, who usually…