Plus, more artworks with haunting tales — It all seems very Scooby-Doo, the eyes of a painting following you as you pass it — a chill settling into your bones — but there are works of art that people swear are haunted. One of them is The Dead Mother, also known as Death and the Child by…

Not sure we are on the same page here — Hi! Let me just say that I’m very excited to get back to work and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to be a part of your new movie. I just finished the script for Brad the Impaler and have a few questions. First of all, what an impressive kill…

Turns out our fossilized feces has quite a tale to tell — I’m certain that the Native Americans answering nature’s urge in a corner of their cave-dwelling 6,000 years ago, nor the Medieval Europeans using their public latrines would have ever imagined that their offerings would be objects of intense study to future humans — but that’s exactly what has happened. While…

Be Nice Day and Random Acts of Poetry Day? — I missed Random Act of Kindness Day last month. Hopefully, I was kind to someone but I missed writing about how kind I was. So how gratified was I to learn from Chronos’ October Writing Prompts that October 5 is both ‘Be Nice’ Day and ‘Random Acts of Poetry Day’? …

Will we ever forget the sky on September 11? — The sky was blue the morning of September 11th in Texas. When people in other states talk about the day, they also mention how blue the sky was. Was it raining anywhere in the US that day? It was certainly beautiful in New York where the Today Show hosts interrupted…

A visit to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum will always stay with me — For years, I wanted to visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Late this summer, the opportunity finally presented itself during a family trip to NYC. …

We used to have the cojones to put it in writing — There are many reasons why I’m glad not to be a Millennial or a Zoomer, but at the top of the list has to be dating communication, or the lack thereof. People meet online, deepen their romantic connection online, and when that connection withers, they break up by text or…

Pumpkin Spice Latte is back — The temperature gauge on my car let me know it was 107 degrees in my Texas city yesterday. Which means — according to the Starbucks marketing folks — it is fall y’all! There’s nothing I want more right now, except for a week straight of rain and a standing refill…

There’s a lot more of a cultural context for it — I don’t know when it started. Maybe 10 or 15 years ago. The few strands of hair that would show up in the shower drain started to multiply. They were darker than mine, right? They were obviously his. “I think you’re shedding,” he said. Those may not have been the…