All posts by Buffy

native tongue


I’m not a dialects person, but I’ve chased down people who are and the general consensus of those ‘in the know’ seems to be that it’s the Appalachian tongue that’s closest to Shakespeare’s own. That the mountains have served as an insulator and protected the mother tongue of their earliest immigrants. In the days following

on faces


It’s funny how we think we know the people we think we know. Until we find out we don’t. Then we’re surprised, but not really because we sort of suspected it all along. That we didn’t know them as well as we thought we did. Or at all. It makes us sad. Then it makes

big ben


We, Steph and I, climbed out at Bridge Street and ducked into a Tesco Express for paracetamol and hand sanitizer. Hoping they had a loo too. They didn’t. But they did have the bulk standard Meal Deal which we lunched on in the Square – a little patch of grass near Parliament which, it should

plez robinson hubbard. an obituary.


Plez Hubbard died last week. That wont mean a thing to you. Unless you live on the mountain…or used to. My mom called and said ‘they found him in his car’ and that someone had made out he’d been there for a while. But he hadn’t. His obituary showed up too soon for that. I’m

kafka. the metamorphosis.


“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” I don’t know about you, but the opening line of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis colours my view of the entire book. Whenever someone asks me to review it or just ‘tell me what you think

alphaville. and icicles on coal.


My grandmother tells me I look like my mother. And when I put on her old flannel shirt circa 1975… She laughs, “It’s enough to confuse anyone!” Pity I didn’t get the washboard abs she liked to sport, even at six months pregnant (I do not lie), or her Nefertiti neck. But I did get

speaking of faith. the novelist as god.


It’s the great sweep of time that allows us to make sense of our lives and the lives of people. I subscribed to American Public Media’s newsletter “Speaking of Faith” several months ago, but never got around to reading or listening to any of it until tonight. After a few minutes I started taking notes

prednisone and the linda blair effect


Me: Did you ever have any side effects when you were on Prednisone? Mom: I wanted to tear my head off to stop it spinning around backwards. Every day. Is that what you mean? Me: Uhm…yeah. I’ve felt like handing these out this week. But I don’t have enough to go around. Prednisone is a

john updike. dead at 76.


It’s 2:00 a.m. I’m downstairs. In the dark. In my husband’s pajamas. Microwaving milk. Most of you will be able to pull an image from that. But unless you’re a genuine, long suffering, insomniac, you won’t really appreciate the moment or how it felt or how very much it resembled a Charlie Kaufman adaptation. And