Somewhere within Strangers In Their Own Land, Hochschild refers to the struggle of the current US left as between haves and have-nots, and the struggle of the right as between takers and makers. I nodded; this squares with what I hear in my liberal enclaves, in my Southern conservative surrounds, and even back in my […]

So here’s an interesting side effect: I’m reading Strangers In Their Own Land, an exceptionally well-timed work of non-fiction, and as I read I feel a sticky sense of sadness that stays with me all day. I’m like the rubberized horse whose story she recounts late in the book. I recommend the book to you, […]

[NB: I am super, super irritated with how WordPress-on-my-phone sporadically doesn’t get my post to appear according to schedule. Or maybe it’s WordPress itself. Regardless, this is from Tuesday night…and I’m not making one for Wednesday. Nyah.] Teach us, Lord, every day : the duty of delight. –from Common Prayer: a liturgy for ordinary radicals, […]

What is this mood you speak of? We are writers. We do not have moods; we are beyond all moodiness! While still maintaining our black-clad beatnik unsmiling countenances, which are definitely not indicators of mood. (Me, to myself) I’m still not much of a workingwoman, writing-wise. My writing dailiness during this past week has hovered on […]

“Noah does not build a boat, but rather an ark. An ark is a box. The measurements given for it in the text are rectangular, and their is neither a keel nor a rudder, nor a sail…. The important fact is that, in such a vessel, the humans and animals are utterly helpless, cast about […]

[Bazerman (1990)] suggested not only that writing is typically an ill-defined problem, but also that it may well be an infinite variety of ill-defined problems. An expert in one domain of writing–novelist, poet, journalist, scientist–is not necessarily even competent in another domain. Each text form requires new ways of inventing and communicating ideas. –RT Kellogg, […]

What makes domestic labor seem so spectacularly unrewarding is the fact that it is both uncompensated and looked down upon, falling into that category designated “unproductive” labor by Adam Smith[.] …The rewards of such “unproductive” labor cannot be quantified, and its measure can be taken only in the well-being of others. …Here one notices the […]

What are the stories that made you what you are? Stories are how we tell our children who they are and whose they are. The stories we tell ourselves become how we operate in the world–tell yourself that people are laughing at you, and you become armored and defiant; tell yourself people are preoccupied with […]

What’s the top priority when everything is important? And urgent? I value attention management. I find it a more useful discipline than time management because, for whatever reason, when I ask myself, “Where’s my attention?” I get more productive answers than when I ask, “How am I spending my time?” To invent an example, I […]