Category: FreeForm

  • My Day of Not-Writing

    Wednesdays are supposed to be writing days, but this week went differently. Today, instead of writing, I took my partner to be discharged from the oncologist  because he’s been cancer-free for two years (yay!) Best doctor ever, BTW, and not just because of the good news. It’s been an odd journey, because I’ve felt like…

  • I Would Never Have the Patience

    I am easily bored. And distracted. And… oh, sorry. What was I saying? I think a cat wandered by the window. Anyway, I think of myself as a person without much patience, tending to want instant results, unwilling to put in the time. I suspect that some of you who have known me for a…

  • The Festival of Lights, Rural Style

    I went to our local Santa Claus parade this evening. It was pouring rain and we had trouble finding the float that the kids were supposed to be on. There were about 20 floats altogether, including the fire trucks from the nearest three volunteer fire departments (hopefully nothing burned or crashed during the parade!) Some…

  • These Books Matter

    When I took a course on Race, Culture, and schooling at grad school, the instructor’s main goal as stated was not to get us to “do” multiculturalism better, but to examine the very nature of discourse on race, ethnicity, and class. That course changed everything for me: it changed my reading practices, it changed the…

  • The Magic of Eleven

    I have an eleven-year old child. He has the advantage and disadvantage of being the oldest, which means that at every age he is taking me through another page of motherhood. I have been blessed with a most gentle journey, with a most gentle soul, so with him as my guide, I’ve been able to…

  • Hanging with The Artists

    I had a brief flirtation with the arts community this weekend. I got to be the helper in the booth for one of my friends who makes really fabulous pottery. (You can see it at her blog over here: http:\\lizziespots.blogspot.com) I got to demonstrate my vicarious understanding of the vagaries of hand-building vs. thrown and…

  • There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Pet

    It started with tadpoles. Ordinary, run of the mill, free from the pond up the road, tadpoles. They arrived home in a rubbermaid container, or a yogurt container, or something plastic, small and cheap. But the kids wanted to keep the tadpoles, and see them turn into frogs. This seemed like a reasonable science project,…

  • Poem: With Apologies to Erica Jong

    With Apologies to Erica Jong… And our other foremothers who spent our childhoods storming the gates of power so that when we came of age, they would stand open, gaping before us, beckoning. And to my sisters who ran with me towards the maw, firmly convinced that this. This. was the key to it all.…

  • On the Care and Feeding of Trolls

    Warning: Contains obscenities, which is almost completely uncharacteristic for me. Just in case you care. I got a troll on twitter. Just one, and it was mild, and I did not deign to reply. I chose instead to revert to my sister’s IRL approach (which she brilliantly came up with at 14, I might add.)…

  • Here’s the Payoff

    Last night I was taking my 7-y.o. daughter to her first Taekwondo class, and my 11-y.o son asked to come along for the ride. In the car on the way the conversation turned to why she wanted to take it in the first place. “Well,” she said, “Christopher likes it. And I like a lot…

  • Playing Catch Up

    I would like to be an organized person, but I seem to need to be a flexible person instead. Yesterday, I had three things on my list to be done between 4:00 and 6:00, one of which was to carve the pumpkins that my two older kids had to take to school this morning. But…

  • Maura Kelly is Wrong

    On the off chance that you haven’t seen the controversy over at Marie Claire, Maura Kelly came out with a truly appalling, distressing, and honest piece of writing this week. She doesn’t like looking at fat people. She really, really doesn’t like looking at fat people kissing one another. And she compares being overweight to…