Madeline MacGregor's Blog
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Nov.26.2011
Six women stood on a cold street corner last night. In the little town of Albany, Oregon. They held homemade signs up and smiled and waved. Six women, ranging in age from their 30s to retirement age. Six women, unafraid.
Traffic was sparse. It was the day after Thanksgiving and most residents...
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Nov.24.2011
Here, in the mind’s hopeful eye, lives the best photograph. There is no evidence or five-by-seven inch proof of its existence.
In the house where I grew up, a camera was an everyday tool. My father used it as a writer might a diary: a black and white journal punctuated with moody grey...
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Apr.21.2011
I will tell you what I know of death and taxes: Each year as the filing deadline draws close, I am riddled with anxiety and die innumerable deaths, all of which precipitate a constellation of tragedies.
Two weeks before tax day, I sit immobile, shackled. From under the fake bamboo laminate...
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Feb.11.2011
Tonight I’m trolling the deep and endless waters of internet auctions. I’m a woman on a mission, and what I’ve found, I must win. Is it silver? Does it glisten? Is that an amethyst as big as the moon? (Warning: objects do appear larger online.) No matter, I’ll just buy it because I have to, and...
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Dec.30.2010
1) Gain 40 pounds: Why should I suffer and deprive myself of refined sugar? For the past year I crept past the office candy jar, politely refusing chocolate. I eschewed dessert at friend’s parties, full of self-righteous health. “Didn’t you hear? I’ve given up sugar.” My friends gobbled cookies and...
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Dec.23.2010
At five in the morning, our neighborhood is nestled in slumber. From the kitchen I hear sounds: lids clanging, utensils rattling, drawers opening, my father and mother arguing as they wrestle “the bird” to the sink.
In the pre-Christmas dawn, my sister and I huddle in our twin beds. Our parents...
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Oct.14.2010
As a five year-old, I dug eagerly into the dirt with a trowel, constructing shallow rows. At the time, I was a city kid living next door to a vacant lot. I owned that little private jungle and cultivated carrots and radishes in its sparse soil. Crazily large seeds erupted into fire colored...
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Oct.06.2010
The husband’s muffled voice (a swindle of an uncorrected cleft palette) is a sharp note in a detrimental melody. Yet the opposite sex finds him elegant and powerful. He has an appetite for women of color—fantasies ignited by Lena Horne’s dazzling smile. After he marries, the wife is absurdly...
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Oct.03.2010
Along the winnowed ditch,tangled winter thistle beardstubbled-deep valleys vaseline smoked vistas,crowded spectral fields.
Daily, coffee spatteredintercession procession:a crushed hare, a startled squirrel,victim and conquistador of thebloody tarmac shuffle.
Antler framed brow,refracted mountainous...
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Sep.29.2010
Get it out
Flagrant inattention, breathing
stifled, up-shut, flattened
lengthy dormant inspiration(less) dough.
Fat gut, big toothed, want it now
whirligig windmill arms
(ill)suited for nothing
not even a post-it note.
Imagine (un)sociable thoughts
cheeky blackboard mind
chalky...
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Sep.26.2010
It's been a year and a half since I lost one of my two best friends to breast cancer. Although she managed to live 10-years after diagnosis with incredible strength (she never allowed those of us around her to voice negativity), the cancer spread to her pancreas and liver. I think of her often, and...
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Sep.18.2010
Change is nothing more than a moral ethical exercise, and in its chattiness of possibilities the adjectives of despair thrive.
If that sounds gloomy or like downright pessimism, you’re spot on. I’m not referring so much to the Obama politics of hopeful/wishful change, but to the eternal cyclical...
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Sep.08.2010
Once upon a time, fame was the boogeyman… a personality of substance. Children shriveled underneath their covers while elders spun wicked tales. Sweet dreams turned nightmarish, and all were deeply satisfied.
The boogeyman enjoyed his celebrity. He shared it even, calling upon the wide toothed...
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Sep.02.2010
I detest fall. While its essence and appeal can be alluring—smoky dawn, cloudy light, merino sweaters—fall’s prelude signals rain, murky windshields, damp fur, and slippery tiles.
My hatred is unique—most people I know feel an excitement—they eagerly plow forward with plans for carving pumpkins...
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The garden is where the true world exists... and this is where we go to lose our sense of importance. The real action of the planet is interpreted elegantly by the work of insects and birds. We shrink and expand according to their dictate.”
—Madeline Irene MacGregor
About Madeline
Madeline MacGregor and her husband live in semi-rural Oregon. She is employed by Oregon Travel Experience as their communications officer. MacGregor was both reporter and book review editor for "Pandora: A Washington Women's News-journal." She also reported...
Causes Madeline MacGregor Supports
Occupy!
Madeline’s Favorite Books
Thirteen Moons, Lacuna, The Bonesetters Daughter, Tale of Two Cities, The Golden Bowl, The Color Purple, Notes of a Native Son, When Things Fall Apart,...