Maggie Ink

The Coachella Music and Arts Festival has moved into my neighborhood for the next two weeks. The lineup of great live music got me to thinking about how music relates to my other great love — books.   Of course all art feeds off each other. Visual artists are inspired by musicians who are inspired [...]

Let me take you back in time, back before The Husband and I had health insurance. The Husband was in terrible pain and needed an expensive root canal surgery, but our options were limited. We could drive to Mexico and look for a dentist in Tijuana. We could go to a dentist friend-of-a-friend in Santa [...]

A woman stopped me in my neighborhood as I was walking my dog. She pulled a bag of organic dog treats from her purse. “Can doggie have a tweat?” she said in a high-pitched baby voice. She began to kneel by my dog. “Um, sure,” I said. Then I launched into my prepared spiel: “Yes, [...]

It’s difficult to take a bad photo of Venice’s Grand Canal, but I certainly tried. Exhibit A: Grey sky. No dominant point of interest. Big-ass crane in the distance.   Exhibit B: More grey sky. More big-ass crane. Plus gondolier butt.   And then … the sun slipped out to say hello.   Suddenly the whole [...]

Overall, this has been a great year for reading, right? I read so many good books in 2012, I had trouble paring them down for this list. (Sorry, Gone Girl. But you made so many other lists!) I love that I have the luxury of reading again. When I worked for newspapers, it was a challenge [...]