I can’t take amputated limbs anymore.  I can’t take another mass killing of kids or grandparents or another wedding party blown up somewhere.  I don’t care if it’s in America or a better place or a worse place.  These things can’t keep happening, but they… Read full post »

My sister calls from Minnesota and asks how I’m enjoying not having to be perfect all the time.

“I like it,” I say, the phone tucked under my chin.  I’m talking to her while I dust my rock collection.

“Like how?” she says.  I can tell she doesn’t/… Read full post »

I am at school in my office and have packed a good lunch for myself: my off-brand Ensure that I use as a main course if I’m running out of the house late (that I write down as “elder juice” on my grocery list), an apple, a cheese stick, and… Read full post »

It’s after bedtime but I sit bent at my desk, reading a book and typing up some notes.  I’m 44 years old but might as well be 18 and in college, immersed in writing an English paper.  Even though I’m tired after a day of work and an evening of… Read full post »

It’s 6:30 in the morning and I’m looking for my pigeons.  I peer through the custom-made blinds that hang in front of my newest window. I’m proud of this window because it wasn’t here when I moved in seven years ago; it is my imprint on this house, a major… Read full post »

I’m driving to campus on a Saturday for work, mentally scoffing at the people who think online instructors have it easy.  Idiots, I think.  They don’t even know.  But I’m in a happy frame of mind because I love what I do for a living, so this is more like fun/… Read full post »

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In 2006, I fell in love with a short man.  He was no taller than I was, and if he ever appeared so it was due to his wavy black hair, which would sometimes get poofy like a porn star’s.  If you put us butt-to-butt and smashed down his hair, you… Read full post »

Onomatopoeia

For the last twenty-four hours, two current trends have occupied my mind: wearing a bra seven or eight times before washing it, and butt chugging.

I have brunch out with Vivian, a girl I’ve known since high school, a best friend for thirty years.  She is bright and bubbly, a social butterfly; I am reserved and quiet, a social pupa.

For over a week, I waited for my new glasses to arrive, the ones with rose frames and…bifocals.  I spent that time wondering how a young person like me could end up with bifocals so early.  At 44, I was getting regular mammograms and had endured a colonoscopy.  I worked on… Read full post »

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I stand in front of my class—25 freshmen college students—trying to instill in them a love for community service, for kind acts and the resulting bursting hearts. I haven’t done any community service myself in about thirty years, but I know it to be a good thing.… Read full post »

At one point during the past couple of weeks, I realized that I had lost my favorite black leather sandals. They were open-toed flats with plain but classy straps, perfect for showing off a new pedicure. I missed them casually at first, the thought of wearing them… Read full post »

“Who does he look like?” my mother asks over the phone, five little words I’ve heard so often over the years. I can picture her in the basement with the phone tucked under her chin, a basket of wet clothes on the floor next to her.… Read full post »