Stout shoulders slump under the weight of 1983: war in Chad, war in Afghanistan, war in El Salvador, war in Grenada, war in Lebanon, war in Nicaragua. Mass murderers roam the highways, an airliner is …
Thursday, December 22
People say that once you discover Ventura Place, you keep coming back. Some say it's because this street across from Belmont Park in Mission Beach has the most beautiful sunsets in the world. Others think …
Thursday, December 15
While the monolithic banks of B Street are absorbed in fixing their depressed computers and in advertising unintelligible pie-in-the-sky programs, down at Check Cashiers, Inc., Mr. Average American is getting his spinach. The check-cashing emporium …
There is something startling about the place called Hakwin: in the midst of this mountain valley, green with manzanita, juniper, and pine, the hundred-foot-high granite ridge looms like an apparition. It is perhaps a half …
I may be the youngest San Diegan to remember the Second World War, especially the time immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor. If I get lucky and live to be a hundred years old …
Thursday, December 8
Recently I spent an entire endless afternoon in a delicatessen while the man in my life, whom we’ll call Henry, backed away from a previous urgency to marry me. I drank stone-cold tea and tried …
John and I stood on a flat rock under the hot sun holding our fishing lines. Far below us large waves steadily struck the Baja coast south of Ensenada at this place called San Juan …
Thursday, December 1
Coyote was lying in bed watching the moon come up over the freeway, wondering what he would have for dinner. For the past few weeks he’d been living in a canyon overlooking the San Elijo …
Even I, who grew up cold and alone in dark apartments with a frowning mama and an absent father, began to glow. I, who for years looked sallow and hugged mechanically, grew apple-cheeked and comfortable with embraces.