I had pancakes for breakfast yesterday and I took it totally for granted. God, how quickly we forget the hard times. Back in the day, (when I was living on nothing but beer and chicken-flavored potato chips), finding any kind of American baked good was like a treasure hunt. I was reminded of this when…
Techno-Love
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Or, On How to Avoid Becoming a Lesbian at College My friend, Frances, and I have married the same man. Frances: Alex is bobsledding in Lillehammer. He’s a bit nervous. Me: Why? He’s loves to ski black diamonds in brightly colored one-piece snowsuits. Frances: The first time they go down in a big bathtub thing…
Feeling Normal in Nashville
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My life is decidely different than it was a year ago, 3 years ago or 7 years ago. Colin and I move around and like to keep things interesting. Our latest additions to the household have definitely redefined the meaning of “interesting.” And exhausting. So as a sweet little surprise for my birthday, Colin called…
The Parenting Apocolypse
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Wow there is SO much “content” out there in the World (Wide Web) to inform, amuse, and berate today’s parent. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Some of it is actually useful. Such as the answers to basic questions like “Which end is up, again?” “Will it ever stop pooping?” and the classic follow up,…
On Finding a Voice
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I have a tendency to slip into foul language when little people are asleep. It’s the side effect of a past life working in the restaurant business where half the employees never escape a room below 110 degrees and only hear the words: “You screwed my order up again” as the nearest thing to praise.…
My Own Personal A-Team
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The truth is, we all need someone like Howlin’ Mad Murdock to swing in, now and then, in his robe and fluffy slippers to cause an awesome distraction while we eat the rest of the brownies. Or maybe someone like Face, to charm the pants off of manager in the grocery store. She won’t be…
Stephen Fry and the Perfect Rant
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Thanks to my husband, I got the chance to listen to the ultimate rant on America… from my favorite Brit, Stephen Fry. He has a fantastic podcast called Stephen Fry’s Podgrams. Some are scripted, others are extemporaneous. That is major. Fry came to America for his BBC series Stephen Fry’s America, now available on DVD.…
Kentucky Fried Christmas
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After a visit to Colin’s work, we were all famished for lunch today. Nothing says special holiday like a big bucket of KFC. We got the family 12 piece meal and just about devoured all of it together. Dining on fast food on Christmas eve always reminds me of my own childhood. Ever so often…
On the Meaning of Chex Mix…
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My sudden craving for Worcestershire sauce-and-butter- encrusted cereal is a hint about my heritage. Maybe in techno-America, the idea of “heritage” is almost obsolete, except that it isn’t. My iPhone 3G will be nostalgia in a year or two, so hearkening back to the “old days” of baking Chex Mix with my sisters for the…
My Two Front Teeth… My Two Front Teeth
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That’s the song playing in my head at 5 a.m. over and over. Just the refrain. Our brains have a huge capacity for self-torture. Why not after all? When we are going day to day through life and hardly feeding them at all, why shouldn’t they wake us up at 5 a.m. with the random…
Status Update…
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I am not sure what I am supposed to say anymore. I feel guarded, though what I am guarding isn’t tangible. The woman at the food pantry was so frustrated. She didn’t have anything kind to say. She didn’t know me and she still yelled at me. The happiest moment was still in the snow,…
Dreams, canned and stuffed
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“So tell me your dream Lay your head on my pillow Tell me the things that you hide away Your pain Your pleasure Your sorrow Tell me the things that you hide away Your pain your pleasure your sorrow.” –Blue Rodeo If you are looking for the less fortunate, you can find them waiting in…
Less and Less to Say
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I am writing more poems these days. My thoughts are interrupted, and dreamlike. They fly and tumble like monkeys swinging from branches. These days, I have less less less to say, more times repeated,either writhing or couched in metaphor. I want the eavesdroppers to feel lost, yet satiated, all the same. I am using rhetorical devices…
On Being Easy
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A friend of mine from college (found her again via Facebook) recently bought a house with her man in Vermont. Amy is living a rural life, feeding the cats, listening to the wind, recovering when she needs to from the bruises of being a New Yorker. In London, on Oxford Street, it was push and…
The Bacon Fat on the Counter
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I did the dishes. But I left the Presto Power Crisp full of bacon fat on the counter. It’s not that I’m not interested in cleaning it– I scrubbed WAY more disgusting pans at The Passage in the London, where burning oatmeal in the bottom of a pot the size of the Queen’s bathtub seemed…
