Mark Bowden, consummate journalist and author of “Black Hawk Down,” read @ ODU Thursday.

I’ve had a sweet Mother’s Day weekend full of offspring and offspring’s offspring. I’m just back from seeing my daughter.  I spent a few days in California with her, her husband and my 10 month-old grandson, aka Baby Danger. I’m arranging as much face time with the baby as I possibly can before my daughter [...]

Lately I’ve been watching movies.  Two this past week:  Rachel Getting Married starring Anne Hathaway, and I’ve Loved You So Long starring Kristen Scott Thomas.  Both of these films quietly portray the complicated life between siblings, yet my biggest takeaway involves what the films didn’t portray. Flashback. Neither film uses flashback to reveal or illuminate [...]

Here’s how it went:

In the drop-off lane outside the airport, I don’t say goodbye to my six-month old grandson. I say “See you soon.” I’m casual.

And Danger is his middle name.

I lost two important things on Tuesday night:  my electricity and my humanity. But first, I lost my cookies. I had been sick most of the night before, and I woke up Tuesday sunk inside my own feverish skin.  I canceled my classes, and shrouded myself under my fuzzy comforter, creeping out of bed only [...]

I have a friend who doesn’t believe in regrets.  She insists that if I’m happy now, I can’t regret my bad experiences, because I have been taught by my pain and it’s part of what makes me who I am today.  It sounds so pop-psych to me, but she’s smart, and she sets her argument [...]

I’m tired tonight, so I’m posting an older column that I’ll be playing off of in a new post Wednesday. * Can I Still Be a Grandmother Even if I Don’t Believe My Daughter Had Sex? They tell me that I am going to be a grandmother next month.  I guess it could be true.  [...]

It’s the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, and I, for one, am celebrating. Okay, well maybe not celebrating, as in woo-hoo martini party; but I am taking notice. Just by coincidence, I’m reading (for the first time) Richard Dawkin’s 1970′s classic The Selfish Gene.  It was a gift given to my youngest [...]

This week, I’ve been working four close-to-my-heart writing projects, and teaching five college composition courses. Me and the words — we’re tight these days. The only word I’m not involved with lately is: “No,”  as in “No, I’m too busy to do that.”  I think it comes from being a freelancing adjunct consultant — which [...]

Below is my original post, and I have received a bunch of photos, for which I am thankful.  I have received none from Portsmouth yet – so please folks, snap them and send them!  Also, Beach people – keep ‘em coming.  I don’t yet have photos that represent all of the aspects of Virginia Beach.  [...]

“[Your mother] created you, so you always owe her and can never really repay the debt. Being born is like asking Don Corleone for a favor.”  – Dennis Miller * My mother tells me that is wasn’t her intention that my older brother and I be born only sixteen months apart. “But,” she adds. “It [...]

Over the next few months, 24sevencities will attempt to capture the essence of each of the seven cities, and highlight a few of the best places to be and see.  I’ll write these stories, so they’ll have my quirky perspective — but I hope you’ll help me. We’d like to get YOUR point of view, [...]

Last week, I arrived exactly on time at the gynecologist’s office for my yearly poke.  It wasn’t easy – the rush from work in soul-sucking seven cities traffic,  and my anxiety about being even one minute late, combined with my resentment over just how anxious I’ve become about a measly minute.  It’s a paranoia linked [...]

As I just told George, my point in the short article “Novel Ideas” was that literature is not removed from those who reject the genre.  But I never meant to suggest that Hollywood truly loves books.  Hollywood loves books like the wife-beater loves his family: he might think he does, but ego and insecurity have [...]

As I just told George, my point in the short post “Novel Ideas” was that literature is not removed from those who reject the genre.  But I never meant to suggest that Hollywood truly loves books.  Hollywood loves books like the wife-beater loves his family: he might think he does, but ego and insecurity have [...]

At the beginning of many residencies at the Bennington Writing Seminars, the late Liam Rector would screen this clip from Glengarry GlenRoss, leaving at least some of the new students squinting and wondering exactly what he meant by its display.  It’s the “Always Be Closing” scene, with Alec Baldwin aggressively berating the sales staff to [...]

The prolific American writer John Updike has died of lung cancer at age 76.  Internet eulogies abound. I read him. I read him throughout most of the real reading years of my life.  I read the Rabbit books and the short stories and much of the rest.  I praised a lot of his writing; I [...]

Reality and the blogosphere – I’ve written about this dysfunctional relationship before. (Here and here.) And I usually maintain that we writers and social networkers in cyberspace often capture emotional truth, but objective reality invariably suffers. So while I do hope folks relate when I joke about “giving the sex talk” to my teenagers, or [...]

I’m obsessed with this one line from Aleksandar Hemon’s novel The Lazarus Project: “All fears are memories of other fears . . .”  I’m not quite through with the 294-page book yet, but I’m a good ways along.  This line was on page 68.  I need to get over it. All fears are memories of [...]

I’m obsessed with this one line from Aleksandar Hemon’s novel The Lazarus Project: “All fears are memories of other fears . . .”  I’m not quite through with the 294-page book yet, but I’m a good ways along.  This line was on page 68.  I need to get over it. All fears are memories of [...]

Is that not THE best combination ever? My lunch was made, I’d gulped my coffee and I was glumly heading to my car, already dreading the messy evening commute home from Norfolk.  (It’s a foul commute even before you add snow and slush and ice.)  And then my gloating 9th grader, who’d already been pardoned [...]

For those who saw the Beer Can Chicken recipe in the print version of Taste and were referred to my blog for the accompanying Strawberry Spinach Salad recipe — here it is below.  You can get the Beer Can Chicken recipe (and see photos of both) here. Strawberry Spinach Salad * ½ cup of white [...]

Danger Baby’s coming to town this summer.  (For those who don’t know, Danger really is my grandson’s middle name.)  He’ll be about 13 months old when he arrives in Virginia Beach, and he’s staying with me for about a month, while his parents, my daughter and son-in-law, do research in the Middle East.  So, there [...]

Happy Birthday 24SevenCities.  I have a grandiose — and slightly subversive — wish for you today. But first, a quick introduction. I’m Leigh Rastivo, and my blog will center around two topics, in equal measure: modern motherhood and writing and literature.  I’m thinking local book club, and some podcasting on literature.  There’s a lot in [...]

Ever since I moved to Blackwater, I’ve dug into the outdoor life like never before–trail running, kayaking, gardening, sittin’ on the porch—but I haven’t completely disowned my keep-up-appearances suburban heritage.