Finding Grateful
I feel a very unusual sensation — if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude. -Benjamin Disraeli When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. -Willie Nelson According to some of my Facebook friends, November is an unofficial month of gratitude, where each day a participating person is supposed ...
A brief history of racism
Last week, the Associated Press and other news outlets reported that racial attitudes have gotten worse, not better, since the United States elected its first African American president four years ago in 2008. Those who admitted to having anti-African American feelings rose from 48% in 2008 to 51% in 2012. If the researchers included implicit ...
Book learning for girls
Last week a 14-year-old Pakistani girl named Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the Taliban. Her crimes, labeled “activism” by the monsters who tried to kill her and her female classmates, appears to be attending school and encouraging other girls to become educated. This week, in my home state of Wisconsin, a man ...
Letter to my fairly recent self
It’s the most glorious time of the year in Minnesota, the cusp of autumn, with bright, still-long days, a warm but no longer humid breeze in the air with the green smell of trees and flowers still in bloom. My family and I are visiting my brother and his family — his wife, toddler, newborn, ...
Expressing Motherhood show, September/October in Los Angeles
In January 2011 I had the honor of performing a personal essay I’d written in the Expressing Motherhood show in Los Angeles. I’m happy to announce that I will be performing again in the upcoming September and October Expressing Motherhood show. The Expressing Motherhood team has recently launched a blog featuring mothers and creativity, and ...
Tumblr – The Three Amigos
I’m posting a link to the recent Tumblr post I wrote for the soon-to-be-released book Dancing at the Shame Prom. The book is a compilation of personal essays by some well-known writers and is coming out on September 11, 2012. I am planning to buy it! (To be clear: I’m not one of the authors ...
It was 15 years ago today
The following reminiscence is brought to you by my upcoming anniversary. I’ve just finished writing a draft of a memoir, including some drama from 1997, and remembering that it was (for me, in the end) a very good year: The artists’ residency is nearing the end. With horses and panoramic views outside my writing studio ...
All Summer in a Day, 2012
The Hipstamatic app on my phone really does nothing to soothe my overdeveloped sense of pathos and tragedy. Neither does that beautiful, damnable song “We Are Young” by the appropriately named band, Fun. I’m going to a writers colony exactly one month from today, something I waited and worked hard to apply for. Several years ...
The facts of life
I sort of recall the day my mother tried to tell me about “the facts of life,” or the ones that pertained to the getting a period. She had sent away for the Modess kit of visual aids and granny maxi pads with an elastic belt that girls were supposed to wear under their gigantic ...
The well-loved book
My first work-study job in as a freshman in college was at the school library. I worked at the front desk checking out books. As work-study jobs go, I could have done a lot worse. It was 1987, and we still used a paper system to loan books. I’d ask for my fellow students’ ID, ...
