Month: July 2009

  • He’s Making a List and Checking It Twice: For Only With Such Careful Reviewal Can He Be Certain No One Named ‘Pedro’ Gets a Train

    “That’ll be $1.50,” announced the parking lot attendant from inside his air-conditioned box. Eyes twinkling, cheeks rosy, beard fluffy, he followed up with a jolly, “So…what’s new at the zoo?” It was hard not to grin back at this Santa Claus look-alike, especially because I haven’t exactly been a good girl this year, but I […]

  • Take My Wife…Please

    My dad was a mild-tempered man. He made Jimmy Carter look like a rowdy spitfire. In fact, I only remember my father snapping or lashing out on the rarest of occasions during my childhood. I remember him getting upset one time when his three monkey children were blowing really big, loud bubbles in their glasses […]

  • Shove Me to Snivel

    Ever since I had kids, and my head got full of other voices, I tend to figure things out when I’m running. During the hour or so a day when I’m alone, when my body’s motion is overcoming my Fatigue of Brain, thoughts gel. As feet turn over, I think forward. It’s actually become a […]

  • Real Cool

    If you crave a getaway right now, click on these, and I’ll take you to the beach: Then we drove up the road to warmer waters: I can’t believe a kid of mine refused to put her head under a waterfall due to moss. What a pansyarse:

  • Seems I’m the Type That Was Heard on High…or, In Your Case, Read While High

    A few weeks ago, after two terms in my English classes (both writing and literature), a student sent me this email: “Thanks for your engel pacience” First reaction? Clearly, my work here is done. Second reaction? Less clearly, something like “BWAHH?” coupled with an impulse to mock. Third reaction? Clearly, I should never try to […]

  • I Did Not Either Go Back Three Days Later and Stage These Photos, So Hesh Up with Your Badgering Questions Already

    Check out my science experiment this week: When a body falls in the forest, and no one’s around to hear it, it does make a sound, and that sound is “Great Johnny Appleseed, but OWWWWWWWWWWWWW!” This scientific breakthrough happened the other day when I was out for a run on one of my favorite sections […]

  • They Say They’ll Be Done in Four Weeks…

  • Can’t Touch This

      On my first day of college twenty-four years ago, I heaved into my arms a laundry bag holding Kermit the Frog (a stuffed version, mind you; the live one was on location in Hollywood), Howard Jones cassette tapes, and aerosol cans of Aquanet. A bit tremulously, I walked into my freshman dorm. Naturally, the […]