Staci Swedeen

I woke up this morning thinking about all the ways I’ve spent New Year’s Eve over the years. A few highlights, in no particular order:

In Times Square. This was not intentional. My friend Sheila had written a play that was being performed at a small theatre in midtown at 10 (more…)

I want to write something smart and pithy about the end of 2009 – but all I can say is thank Zeus it’s coming to a close.

I mean, really!

Enough of the failing financial markets, the gloomy economic indicators, the unemployment statistics and budgetary shortfalls. Enough of the ongoing war, the warming climate, the (more…)

This morning, sitting down and finding ways to avoid wrestling with my computer and figuring out how to fix the play I’m working on, I decided to glance through the job listings site on Craigslist. But that also sounded a lot like work. Wouldn’t it be more fun to look at what is being offered “free?”

The answer? (more…)

It showed up as a form letter yesterday.

“I am writing to inform you that sensitive personally identifiable information about you may have been viewed by an individual who should not have had access to such information.”

The letter goes on to say that a man has pled guilty to conspiracy to commit identity (more…)

American author Dorothy Parker once wrote, "If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second-greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first-greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they're happy."

Yes - shoot me now! Writing is the ever-receding horizon. Just about the time I think I know what I'm doing it becomes apparent that I don't. So rather than write anything today I went searching for more quips and quotes by (more…)

I flew to Knoxville on May 14 for the opening night of a show my friend Jayne directed - "Forbidden Knoxville." It was filled with many clever references to local town politics and people, all set to well known show tunes. Of course, catchy songs have the damnedest way of burrowing into your brain and continuing to (more…)

Here's the thing about not having kids - I can pretend that time has stopped. Or at least slowed waaaaay down. This kind of denial is impossible when I am staring into the eyes of a baby born and delivered by someone I vividly remember as a baby himself. I was recently in San Diego where my youngest (more…)

Yesterday afternoon I went to local film festival to see a screening of JAIL TALK - a new documentary made by my friends Michelle and Chuck Clifton and their partners at Hudson River Films. (www.HudsonRiverFilm.org.) The film profiles some of the most progressive and intense offender retraining programs in the United States.

Before his death my oldest brother spent time in prison, so the film resonated in a very personal way. Would things have turned out differently if he'd been in a program that aimed to break the cycle of addiction? This morning I woke up thinking of my brother and started an essay on what it is like to love - and lose - a brother that was so troubled and troubling.

Oh - and Michelle and I met because we were both attacked by rabid raccoons. At the time I joked that it was a Republican plot to have raccoons attack liberal, artistic Democratic women. Life finds some funny ways of throwing people together.

My real job is complaining about the weather. It doesn't pay a lot - but it keeps me very busy. I've reached a new "personal best" this month. It snowed heavily on March 1 and it snowed again on March 20 - the first day of spring. What the _&^%!? I walk around the house feeling cold and contracted. I'd like to blame it all on the weather, but honestly? I feel like I'm bracing myself against the onslaught of negative news that has poured forth the last several months. Each week brings another story of a friend who has lost their job. They join the rest of us "freelancers" who are never tallied up in the unemployment rolls. It's been a cold winter in more ways than one. Which is why I took particular delight in what greeted me this morning as I got up to go for a walk. There, sitting as close to the house as possible was a deer. Maybe spring is coming after all.