Month: January 2008

  • Hot Child in the City

    Remember in 1991 when Demi Moore squatted down, and a girl child fell out? Less memorably, remember the Friday night in 2000 when I put my knees to my ears and emitted a squalling bundle of flesh? Now, some years later, I’ll be tumpluckered if a national organization hasn’t gone and named itself after those […]

  • All of Y’all Need to Eat More Whole Grains. ‘Ceptin’ the Poor ‘Uns. You’re Good.

    “Wait! What’s that?” asked seven-year-old Girl, catching a glimpse of the email I had opened on the computer tonight. “It’s just a message someone sent. But it’s time for bed; go choose your book, and then we’ll brush teeth,” I responded, ever task-minded at 8 p.m. I get profoundly more task-minded when my husband has […]

  • I Need Fifty-Nine Drinks

        When I was 18 months old and napping one day, my aunt felt compelled to hold a mirror to my mouth to check my breathing and find out if I was still alive. I slept that deeply. When I was an adolescent, my sister once poured a glass of water on my face […]

  • The Twelve-Inch Scar

      Five years ago, on January 17th, I made one of my students vomit. I hadn’t even assigned “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” either. Rather than yacking up her lunch as a reaction to Coleridge’s opium-induced writings, she barfed out of affection and empathy. See, this student came from a background so sketchy, so […]

  • Flaking and Cursing

      Thanks to Jesus and his lot–and Lot’s Wife–I need some new swears. If it weren’t for them and all their high-fallutin’ “Biblical history,” I probably would never have heard of the Dead Sea and its abrasive salts. Which means I wouldn’t use sea salt in my homemade olive oil/cedar essence/sea salt body scrub that […]

  • The Night Elizabeth Taylor Didn’t Kiss Me

    (Note: If you didn’t read the previous post by my guest blogger, Jim, you’d best do that before reading this one. No, seriously. Go do it. Stop skimping on every facet of your life. Just go read it, for the love of Mary Kate and Ashley. Then read this one. Still here? Kee-rist, slacker, is […]

  • Elizabeth Taylor’s Dress

    Sometimes we see our craziness only in retrospect. Ah, hell, not sometimes. Pretty much always; I mean, if we realized how off kilter we were at the time, we’d probably tame our wilder impulses. Right, Britney? My most recent crazy decision occurred in mid-December, when I agreed to teach a class this upcoming semester that […]

  • W.W.O.D.?

      If there is a circle of life, that circle just might be the “O” at the start of “Oprah.” It all starts and ends with Her Royal TalkNess, dunn’t it? If we need a book to read, she tells us what to buy, and invariably we’ll find ourselves gratified to have paged through yet […]