the decisive clarity that is ennea-five

A colleague and I were chatting over lunch last week… somehow we’d gotten onto Life With Babies (blessedly in the past for both of us). Probably because an earlier topic had brought up feces, and she was refreshed at how blasé I was: “You can always tell a parent; they don’t get grossed out anymore.” […]

gesture

advent, noun. the arrival of a notable thing, person, or event. * –gest-, root. comes from Latin, meaning “carry, bear.” This meaning is found in such words as: congestion, digest, gestation, gesticulate, gesture, ingest, suggest. I’m a fan of anticipation, and the way it can set a person up for gratitude and, let’s face it, […]

odd logic of apathy

I veer in and out of existential meh these days. Mercifully not as uniformly grey as the other day’s, but even with the end of term at hand, “what difference, who cares” keeps washing over. What intrigues me is: however much the default stance of apathy remains at “do nothing,” the logic of “keep doing” […]

small secret truths

I reach into the HTML every time I use an “em-dash” — the long ones that connect phrases, like I’m using here — so that I can properly deploy that punctuation. If I can’t get to the HTML from the tool I’m using, I grit my teeth… and later go back and re-em-dash the double-hyphens […]

Xmas triage: the planning

I’m writing this on January 2, 2018. I started writing this in my head right after Thanksgiving 2017. And I’m saving it to post right after Thanksgiving 2018, because it wouldn’t be very helpful now that most of the holiday dust has settled. Timing is important. Triage, this time of year, is everything. [Ed. note: […]

get your priorities straight

rolls through her morning routine, the unawake parts: porridge+coffee+sausage, the newspaper, gut alignment (YES tmi oh well)… thinks: i’m clear. i’m awake. i will head into Doing The Day and not stay in the twitterverse! …wanders down hall but with twitter… puts up ponytails: i could write; i should meditate; the wet laundry could dry […]

released

Save us from weak resignation To the evils we deplore. Let the search for Thy salvation Be our glory evermore. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, Serving Thee whom we adore, Serving Thee whom we adore. —Harry E. Fosdick (professor of homiletics and Baptist/Presbyterian pastor), “God of Grace and God of Glory” which is sung […]

cold front allergy

If today were a child of mine, I would send it outside to play. Don’t come back in until dinnertime. There’s nothing wrong. No misbehavior to account for my negative spin. Nevertheless, today is getting on my nerves and I want it to stop. I keep reminding myself that I’m not entitled to explanations for […]

you keep using that word

Vizzini: Inconceivable! Inigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. —from The Princess Bride I’m not personally in the throes of this difficulty right now, though it crops up sufficiently often that the quote is on my mental speed-dial. Instead I realized (a) that I was […]

the velveteen rabbit of activity

Three weeks ago, I re-folded a scrap of a note left on my bathroom counter and scratched “velveteen rabbit” on it just before I went to bed. Or maybe that was four weeks ago; I’ve been looking at it every day since, so time has blurred. Today, I’ve re-ordered things so that I can color […]