Category: On My Mind

  • Survey Responses from Deanna and Jessica

    Survey Responses from Deanna and Jessica

    Deanna showed up as a student in one of my online classes five years ago. After that, she became a mentor embedded into my courses; she drafted me to be the faculty advisor of our campus chapter of Phi Theta Kappa; and recently she achieved her Bachelor’s degree at the age of 52. ENJOY HER: […]

  • Blogging Like Rihanna’s “Umbrella” Is the Fresh New Tune

    Blogging Like Rihanna’s “Umbrella” Is the Fresh New Tune

    Back in the mid-aughts, when blogging was fresh and new, it seemed like everyone had a blog. Those of us writing recipes, rants, and random raves could toss out a post–and within 24 hours, there might be 40 comments. The blogosphere was jumping. During the heyday of personal blogs, it was common practice for bloggers […]

  • Day Nine: Tokat

    It is perhaps a blessing that Kirsten was our Camera Woman today (it ended up being a shopping day, which means my hands got full of bags, and thus I couldn’t be bothered to drag out my camera every time a gorgeous covered woman looking vaguely melancholy walked by). Her camera snapped most of the […]

  • East Coast Road Trip: From Pho to Chocolate Haha!

    Today marks our last seven-hour stretch of driving for this fun, enriching, spirit-revitalizing road trip. By this evening, we should be back in Duluth, ready to think about hair cuts and eye appointments before the kids start school next week. So, now that it’s almost over, I’m finally ready to go back and recap some […]

  • Quick Favor

      We’re packing up before heading out tomorrow on our three-week road trip to the East Coast. First stop will be three nights in Chicago. My hope is to put up some Picture of the Day posts along the way, but first: I’ve got scaffolding in place for the Writing for Social Media class that […]

  • Notes of a Memory

    I was traveling a trip to Ireland when all I wanted to do was stay home with A Guy whom, it turned out, had no space for me yet it would take him some time to inform me of this fact   At the time I hung My Everything on him In return, he flattened […]

  • Station Identification

    About 12 hours after my previous post, I was ready to write.  In fact, I’d deliberated about the topic of Turkish Men long enough that I’d broken my somewhat-cooled feelings into three representational stories, each of which would cover a different facet of my frustration. Right about then, as I started hopscotching around possible names for these three […]

  • Huff

    While there is plenty of room in the world of Words on Paper for therapeutic, ranty, jabby, disjointed stream-of-consciousness freewriting, I generally think the best writing comes from a place of control. As a reader, I appreciate feeling that the words I’m absorbing have been crafted deliberately, have been given time to gel, have undergone some review, have purpose […]

  • Grumbling Guts, Salty Lips, Woven Rugs

    I’m baaack. There are a few ways in which I’ve been gone: I took a trip; I went shopping; I got sick.  Then there’s the part of me that’s permanently checked out–into a corner of my brain I like to call DreamySpaceLandofTooMuchWineandReading. For all of those reasons, I thank Vicky for allowing me to share […]

  • Ups and Downs: Crisis And Court

    Dear Readers Who Are Following This Tale:  I apologize for getting a piece out of place in the narrative.  Vicky originally posted her story to a Turkish expat forum, and she was writing cathartically, in a stream of consciousness fashion; as I copied and pasted her posts into this blog, I inadvertently left out, in […]