Except for a mother and her twin boys, I was alone on the platform at Kipling. The kids were probably about three or four and had curls like apricot foam haloing their baseball caps. At first, I thought the woman had a bad cold. Her face looked blotchy. She leaned against the wall, staring at her feet. She had one of those knotty bodies that put you in mind of trailer camps and empty Budweiser cans full of bullet holes.

I was coming from a session with my therapist in which I hadn't...

Opening to my novel in progress:

When Zack turned 70, his attention turned south, in the direction of his nether regions. Women—young, middle-aged, elderly, whatever—became irresistible, his body rounding toward them like a cypress bending over the road, although not as awe-inspiring.

Initially, I chalked up his conduct to the shock of arriving at an undeniably old age. He’d settle down in a few months, I told myself—at most a year. Seventy-one would be far less traumatic. From birth, ages...

When I was a schoolgirl—approximately a millennium ago—hanging on the classroom wall was a diagram in the form of a triangle broken into horizontal sectors. Humans occupied the peak, while “lesser” beings were boxed up in order of their presumed intelligence, from supposedly higher level mammals down to reptiles. Since then, we’ve learned that crows plot vengeance over years, elephants mourn ritualistically, and ants can be trained. In other words, that chart was a bunch of hooey.

I’ve often...

But it is one of the dogs in My Life in Dog Years, available from Ingram Sparks, Amazon, or your local bookstore.

https://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Dog-Years-Melodramas/dp/B0DLFR2G8R/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

A lot of the dogs I've owned in my life were cross-breed, otherwise known as Heinz 57 dogs because of all the breeds one dog can represent. They were perfectly wonderful pets, but my interest in specific breeds began on a visit to Oregon to see friends who owned a giant poodle, Maxi. Later I learned almost all poodles are named Maxi. I wrote about her, noting she would've made a stereotypical hippie if only she'd had a prairie dress and a bong. She was an adorable reprobate. As someone who...

– Author unknown

• GOLDEN RETRIEVER: The sun is shining, the day is young, we've got our whole lives ahead of us, and you're inside worrying about a stupid burned out bulb?
• BORDER COLLIE: Just one. And then I'll replace any wiring that's not up to code.
• DACHSHUND: You know I can't reach that stupid lamp!
• ROTTWEILER: Make me.
• LAB: Oh, me, me!!!! Pleeeeeeze let me change the light bulb! Can I? Can I? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can I?
• TIBETAN TERRIER: Let the Border Collie do it. You can feed me while...