We are back to distance learning. Three kids, two of whom don’t read, one of whom doesn’t talk. All of whom need. I am not adjusting with any semblance of grace, but I thought I’d try to write something humorous or at least light in tone for each day that they are home, from the…
What’s the Why Here
Here I am at the end of the first week of January and I cannot begin to imagine I have any idea how the rest of this year will unfold. Therefore, I’m not into resolutions or plans, really. I am thinking about what’s really helping me, though. I’m engaging more with writing flash fiction, which…
Short Story Club Selections for January 2022
Our stories for January 2022 are… “The Killers,” by Ernest Hemingway (1927) and “New York Day Women,” by Edwidge Danticat (1996) and “Jubilee,” by Kirsten Valdez Quade (2013) We will gather online in January 2022 to discuss. Want in? Comment on this post and I will send you more information.
Vocal Improvisation and Functional Empathy
I hear the two-year-old growling in the other room and I hope the eight-year-old will entertain him long enough that I can squish together some words here. I think about how he just turned two, and that maybe in a year we can introduce to him the trajectory onto which I was delivered as an…
Jerry Is a Stray That I Want to Sleep on My Pillow
A twitchy orange tomcat named Jerry doesn’t belong to me, but damn it if I want to bring him inside, give him milk, check him for bugs, groom him however cats tolerate such an ordeal, and just generally domesticate him so that he will turn into a mama cat and have kittens in my room.…
Short Story Club Selections for December 2021
Our stories for December 2021 are… “The Dead,” by James Joyce (1914) and “The Husband Stitch,” by Carmen Maria Machado (2014) and “Sweat,” by Zora Neale Hurston (1926). We meet online each month the discuss the titles. In December, we’ll get together on the 12th. Reply to this post if you’d like to join, or…
My Doula Was Four Years Old
Two years ago I am 39 1/2 weeks pregnant and my daughter becomes a four-year-old doula by mistake. On this date in 2019, I wake up around 3:00 in the morning on a Friday. I use the bathroom. No one else is supposed to be awake at this point in the morning, but my daughter…
The Never Enough
My at-home indoor workout the other day was interrupted after 20 minutes when my toddler woke from his 25-minute-long nap (if you can call it that), and I dragged him out of his crib, careful to engage my pelvic floor that has been destroyed thanks to my getting the “You should do pelvic floor physical…
Parenting As Ambition
I have a second grader, a kindergartner and a maniac who is about to turn two. My daughter asked me a couple of days ago if I always wanted to have three kids. I told her I did. She said, “Well congratulations. You got three kids.” I’ve been thinking about this. I heard a woman…
Short Story Club Selections for November 2021
A few of us last night got online together and talked some about the stories “The Tenth of December,” by George Saunders; “Heads of the Colored People: Four Fancy Sketches, Two Chalk Outlines, And No Apology,” by Nafissa Thompson-Spires; and “The Lady with the Toy Dog,” by Anton Chekhov. In November, we’re reading: “The Monkey’s…