My daughter earned her degrees from the great University of Texas, Austin and one is a Bachelors in Women's and Gender Studies. I love our conversations, even when her clear-headed feminism dispels my own long and closely-held bullshit. Maybe especially when she dispels my culturally ingrained, but ultimately diminishing, bullshit. I was raised to expect praise, get …
Category: current events
Truth and Reconciliation
Three days after my 18th birthday, my father attempted suicide. His business had failed, he felt he had failed, and he waited until I was old enough to take charge of my, and my mother's, life. He did not succeed, thank God, but it was in the aftermath the real madness began. Unable to deal …
Choosing the Birdsong
Maybe because in the wake of Orlando, I needed inspiration and so listened to David Foster Wallace's address to Kenyon College, captured in the small book, This is Water, but I've been thinking a lot about choice. All of life is a choice. I know this is not revelatory information I am dropping here; if you're …
(Un)Safe
It was 4:45 a.m., and the door from my bedroom to the back yard was open just far enough to let Blanca and Ivan go in and out. As I lay in bed listening to crickets and the odd cicada humming, I was warm, comfortable, and safe, enjoying the peace of not-quite morning. After these last few …
Rape Culture
My blood is boiling. Brock Turner, a young man with a promising future, assaults a young woman, is caught in the act, brought to trial, and is let off with a ridiculously lenient sentence because in the judge's, Aaron Persky's, assessment to render justice would have a "severe impact" on his future. This is Rape Culture giving a …
Angry
Angry is the WordPress prompt of the day, and I started this by thinking of all the things I'm angry about, then deleted it all because it's not really angry I feel, it's more heartsick at the anger all around. When did optimistic Americans become so angry we're seriously considering electing a petulant 12-year old …
My First Political Rally
It was a bit of an anti-climax, actually. It's not like I didn't have time, transportation, and belief in the cause, so I couldn't think of one good reason not to attend the Planned Parenthood rally on the steps of the capitol of South Carolina. The purpose of the rally was in protest of House Bill …
I Sing a Song of Secretaries
It's great we have a day to recognize "Administrative Professionals" or, as they used to be known, Secretaries, and I always appreciated the efforts made to acknowledge my contributions as one. But just as one "aw shit" eradicates a thousand "atta girls", I will never forget how much it hurt the couple of times those …
America: Better Than Donald Trump
Something has been circling around my brain for months now, accelerated by the shambolic presidential campaign in which it seems each candidate is vying for the position of Most Unbearable. One insists victims of rape carry their unwanted pregnancies to term, another suggests carpet-bombing the Mideast is a viable foreign policy, one is a pleasant old …
Spotlight/On the Turning Away
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." Never have Lord Acton's words resonated as much as while Paul and I were watching the terrific new film Spotlight. It's a must-see, but it is a difficult see, especially if you were brought up Roman Catholic, and especially-especially if you …
Southern Fried Californian 