Julia Park Tracey

Posting a few other Muses from the past while I wrap my brain around Mother’s Day…more to come. The Naked TruthIt’s my birthday next week — time to renew my driver’s license. The past two times I renewed the license it was by mail, so this time I have been kindly invited by my good friends at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles to pay a personal visit, give a thumbprint and get my photo retaken. Which is a blessed relief because I look like a psycho bank robber on my driver’s license.My current photo was taken just after my 12-year-old was born. I had the “Mom” haircut – that nondescript…

FYI, these are old Modern Muse columns that did not make the blog but were published instead in 20,000 newspapers in Alameda. Read through these few columns for Pure Reading Pleasure!

This ran in our holiday section, 11/18/04 I remember the last meal I had in Paris. I was with my sister on a two-week tour of France and England in 1998; we’d been visiting our friend Mia who was from our hometown but had since left to live the lush life in the City of Light. We met Mia and her boyfriend at a chic “resto” called Homo Sapiens somewhere near the Eiffel Tower. The napkin rings were sections of oxtail bone. There were abstract skeleton paintings on the walls. My sister the attorney looked around the basement restaurant with no fire exits, with just the one circular iron staircase…

I’m gonna post a couple of Modern Muse columns that ran in the Alameda Sun, just to catch you up. I’ll mark the ones I submitted to CNPA which got me the award. This one ran in April of last year. The Thin Line Between Love and HateThere is a stranger in my house, an 11-year-old girl who used to be my baby. She hates me. This was made evident on a recent shopping trip to find suitable attire for her graduation from the sixth grade. We went to the mall, which is where one goes to find the perfect graduation dress, and as we walked into the mall, all…

Is it so wrong — can I just say this? Is it really so wrong to love Hootie and the Blowfish so much? It’s a girl thing, I know. But I love Hootie. Know who else I love? It’s even more deliciously wrong…future American Idol Constantine Maroulis. Yes, I love him. My sister and I discovered our mutual admiration — I mean, lust — for Constantine a few weeks ago, when he sang “I Think I Love You.” (insert screams here). That’s right, the David Cassidy/Partridge Family hit from 1,000 years ago. My sister and I had a big thing for David Cassidy back then, and darned if there isn’t…