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Junk in Our Collective Trunk
“Junk in Our Collective Trunk” Dear Painters of the Renaissance: I’m sorry I was born 450 years too late. I apologize for my absence, for I could have inspired you. In your work, Peter Paul Rubens, I see appreciation of a natural, bountiful female sensuality; in your work, Tiziano Vecelli (aka “Titian”), I see…
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Dognapped
Until recently, we had an extremely yappy dog living next door. She didn’t live alone, of course. She had handlers. Interestingly, this family of hers was, in every area outside of pet ownership, an uptight, buttoned-down group of people. Their home and yard were tidy, pristine. Their voices were never raised; indeed, they were…
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Blast Off
As we tick down to the autumnal equinox, I am left reflecting on what this most-recent summer has dished up. For one: hecka lotta togetherness. Mostly, I like it, but I’ll be the bold parent here who admits that I live for the hours without kids. Groom? Now he can always be around. His…
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Tight
I’m cheap. It’s not that I want to be; rather, it’s that I’ve never had heaps of money, and I do so like stuff. The marriage of these realities means that I live for a bargain. Don’t get me wrong: I inherently have expensive tastes, and I would love to be flush enough to…
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Happiness Is a Red Negligee
Two summers ago, we entered a merciful holding pattern… metaphorically. For nobody got on an airplane. And nobody died. Nobody sprang a mutated version of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” evening on us. Instead, we took a quick trip to Lincoln, Nebraska, meeting my sister there for a few days…
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Eternal Youth
By the summer of 2004, we had sold one of our two houses (no double mortgages), churned out all the kids we intended to (no notion of breeding a full soccer team), and come to acceptance of our family’s quirks (plenty of dysfunction, but no crazy Aunt Millicent tied to a chair…
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Emergence
Four years ago this summer, in 2003, I started to think I might be an adult. I was 36. Sure, I had been married for a few years, I’d been teaching at the college level for more than a decade, I’d been a homeowner several times over, and I had two kids. But up until…
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Family, Edited
I went to a baby shower last weekend. Although it got a little woo-woo during the programmed portion of the event (a candle was lit in the center of the circle; we all held onto a long hank of yarn, one that apparently connected all our pulsing womanhoods into one larger life force; there were…
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Supersized Settling, With a Side of Fries
“Supersized Settling, With a Side of Fries” In the car culture of middle America, the first months of a baby’s life see the infant toted everywhere, from grocery store to doctor’s office to library, all whilst strapped into a car seat with a handle; during this time, the most gratifying interaction a parent has with…
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Norris Geyser Basin
Eight years ago, Groom asked, “So, will you marry me?” The answer, of course, was “Yee-haw, Moondoggie!” And later that night, I got pregnant. …which means that seven years ago this summer, I was the hormonal, exhausted, dazed caregiver of a three-month-old baby. I spent that summer not in Eastern Europe or Iceland, but on…
