Write Through Doors

November 9, 2015.  Before I saw Arlo Guthrie on stage for his 50th Anniversary Alice’s Restaurant Tour at Ann Arbor’s Michigan Theater, I had a fantasy. I imagined that someone on stage introducing the concert might say, “Debbie Merion, will you stand up and wave?” I’d sheepishly smile and wave to 1400 folks sitting behind […]

Read Full Post »

“Do you want a date?” That was the question I asked everyone when I walked into my Toastmasters meeting last night. In my hand I had a plastic container filled with soft and sticky pitted Deglet dates that I had just purchased from the co-op. I was going to use them to make my famous […]

Read Full Post »

Have you ever blown bubbles as an adult (on purpose)?  With no children around. And no other adults.  Which is advisable, because then there is no one to witness you looking what Julia Cameron would call “An Artist.”  ( Full disclosure–I did this  in order to fulfill my week’s requirement for an Artist Date, as […]

Read Full Post »

When I asked my boyfriend TED (his last name is Talk) to surprise me this morning, he surprised me twice—not only with the talk he selected, but how he gave me my surprise. Instead of asking me if I wanted to see a totally random talk (I would have gone for that) or to pick […]

Read Full Post »

It’s not easy to take yourself on a date. In fact, even though Julia Cameron suggests you do this in The Artist’s Way, (which I’ve been dutifully following since January by writing daily morning pages)  she also knows that you (and when I say you, I mean I) will try and weasel out of it. […]

Read Full Post »

Are you a black and white kind of person? Do you like to bifurcate concepts for simplicity’s sake?  I can be yin/yang kind of gal, which is why I am putting forward here my theory of the Two Reasons Most People Write. (By the way, being a black and white kind of person is not […]

Read Full Post »

I’m one of those realistic writers who knows what people mean when they see an article you’ve published, and they say, “it looks good.” They usually mean that literally, i.e. it looks good—there is a nice (printed or web) page layout, maybe an interesting photo with a helpful caption, the words are arranged attractively on […]

Read Full Post »

June 20, 2014.    On June 9,2014 I gave up sugar, gluten, dairy, and alcohol, (all of which I usually  enjoy a great deal.  I’m the type who grabs a handful of free restaurant mints.) Although this is only for 21 days, a friend still called this “a torturous diet.”  “Why?” she asked.  A good question […]

Read Full Post »

I have a habit—good or bad, I’m not sure which—of signing up for physical challenges and then ruing the moment I did. I worry about the event. My neurosis surfaces from deep in my genes and whispers annoyingly, “Why did I say I’d do this? I could stay in bed and read a good book.” […]

Read Full Post »

On June 17, 2013, I had the honor of working with 60 female Jewish cantors at their annual Women’s Cantor Network conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan.   Our challenge:  write a song in two hours.  A song by sixty women musicians?  I don’t know even two women who can agree on the same type of coffee […]

Read Full Post »