I was trying to inflate myself, make myself important in some way I hadn’t earned by tagging onto something noble I was told my parents had done. Though self-elevation wasn’t new to me, I was especially driven to it in the writing class I was […]
It’s a dreadful job and I’m not going to do it
We are all guilty of it on occasion if not every day. While procrastination may seem like a problem with laziness or time management or self-discipline, it’s actually not any of those. It’s a problem with feelings and the ability to regulate them according to […]
Welcome to my mountain, part II
I committed my first cruelty at the innocent age of 4. And I knew it. We were a team almost from the get go, Amy and me. In the 4-kid ABBA rhyme scheme that was our family pattern, we were the tight middle core — […]
Welcome to my mountain
I was in a situation I couldn’t see my way out of short of calling in the ski patrol, however you do that. The problem: the bottom of the mountain was very different from the top. What had been manageable down below on my amateur […]
A silly lunch
I could hear the laughing getting closer and closer before they busted through the door of the drama lab, shouting out, “Ms. Clayton, do you want to know how to eat a peanut butter sandwich in one bite?” They tumbled in like puppies, these two freshmen from […]
Inspirito
“I got the breath of life put in me.” He said it slow, unable to get over the wonder of it. “There was an accident. I’ve been to the county home.” Christine and her friend Kathy had been walking across an old bridge on a […]
Flag girl, part III
So what was this flag girl part of me ready to say I am not having it? The part that, as time went on, was so in-tune with how-to details. “Hmmm, Mary Kerr keeps a garden hose at the ready in the trunk of her car,” […]
Just kiss him
“If you can drive safely while kissing a girl, you are simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.” — Einstein. Reportedly. Photo credit: Lanakila MacNaughton
Flag girl, part II
A classmate and her mother were murdered in their home when I was a sophomore in high school, first her mother, who was shot in the basement where they were both were watching tv, then Karol, who was chased up the stairs into the garage […]
The mouse, the whale, the baby and you
A mouse takes 130 very rapid little mouse breaths per minute and lives for 1 – 3 years. A whale takes 6 whale-sized breaths every minute and lives to be around 100. It almost makes you think breathing long and slow might be a very […]
Flag girl
We heard the DOT paid great so we decided we’d stand on the highway with a flag in our hand and rake it in for a summer. What a thing; we’d just stand on a road and rake it in. Our assignment was Highway 218…mile […]
Housekeeping, part II
His cowboy boots were the first thing I noticed, how they didn’t really go with the ordinary khakis sticking out from under his white, knee-length doctor coat. I was there in his neurology office to find out why I was seeing jaggedy lines in my […]
Be cool. 