• Mother Lucker

    I am a total Scroogey McHoliday Hater. In the last few years, I’ve accepted that this darkness lies within my soul. Christmas? Do we have to? Thanksgiving? I’d rather have drumsticks nailed through my eyelids. Easter? Could we roll that rock back in front of the cave, if it means I don’t have to hide

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  • The Student

    “The Student” What I love the most about teaching at a community college, which is what I do, is that the education we offer provides under-prepared students with a new type of focus and motivation. We also provide cheaper credits to students who don’t want to undertake lifetime student-loan-repayment programs. Because we’re accessible and low

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  • “Abraded” My good friend Susan Lucci, having suffered an awe-inducing number of losses in the Daytime Emmys (okay, so she won once…just enough to keep her contract-renewal negotiations interesting) is multi-talented. Or perhaps she’s greedy. All I know is that, in recent years, she’s resorted to hawking a variety of beauty products to supplement her

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  • “Boreal” (photo: Sonja Wolter)Spring is reclining upon Northern Minnesota with unaccustomed ease. Normally, our Spring takes months to really settle in; indeed, for weeks, we get buffeted about by a variety of snowstorms, mudslides, and occasional peeps of sun, which has us all wearing swimsuits accessorized by puddle boots and ear muffs. But this year,

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  • Flick My Switch

    “Flick My Switch” I’m kind of dim.To put a finer point on it, I lack a certain natural curiosity. Of course, I want to know what’s for dinner, if Heather Mills is able to dance, and when the next Harry Potter will be released. This type of short-term, self-gratifying curiosity I have in spades.But when

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  • “You Finish My Post” Here are some photos from the big race this past weekend (I’m in the blue shirt, #2409). Because I was in a state of severe oxygen debt, I have no recollection of a single thought in my head. So you tell me: what was I thinking, as I tripped through the

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  • “Trailmix: What Doesn’t Choke Me Makes Me Stronger” For the last five or six years, I’ve run a spring race that’s held in a nature reserve outside of Minneapolis. When registering for this race, which is called The Trailmix, there are three options: I could run the 50K solo race (translation: 31 miles, all on

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  • A Jocelyn By Any Other Name Is Someone Else

    About three times a year, I go to a salon to get my hair cut. This, I believe, qualifies me as a semi-low-maintenance woman, at least when it comes to hair. When it comes to dark chocolate and compliments about how my very presence eases any interpersonal situation, however, I am high-high-maintenance, requiring a steady

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  • Endeavoring Vertically

    “Endeavoring Vertically” When Groomeo and I first met and were wooing, he worked as a naturalist at an environmental learning center. What this meant, on a day-to-day basis, was that he tromped around trails with a bunch of fourth graders and expounded on such lofty subjects as water ecology, whitetail deer, beavers, and seeds. Most

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  • Famous First Words

    “Famous First Words” (photo: Jay Johnson) The owner of these feet jumped into my bed this morning, had a little cuddle, and then uttered the household’s First Words of the Day: “I have dried boogers in my nose. You need to get them out.” If, like the gypsies of Romania, you are a superstitious person

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