“What Will it Take for You to Listen?”
Breq has a lot in common with other sci-fi protagonists: she is impossibly good at everything she does, she has a super-human brain, and she is cagey and mysterious around everyone she meets.
Learning the Drip
My little bubble of relationships and routines exists for me to serve it with compassion, not for me to overlook it because something more interesting is on the horizon.
The Broken Streak
I’ve developed this existential dread of that First Failure, but I can do something about that. I can have as many First Failures as I have Streaks, if I want to.
Repurposing Gravestones
For years, I swear I knew the five stages of grief and what it felt like to come through to acceptance on the other side.
An Object Lesson
Once someone no longer needs unemployment assistance because they’ve gotten a job, things should be much easier: more money, more independence, more control, more freedom. But DeParle wants to show us just how much harder it gets after welfare.
The Nose Knows Too Much
Moments like this, this spiraling existential crisis brought upon me by a bit of charred soy, are things that I thought wouldn’t carry over into adulthood.
An Almost-Century in the Making
Born in April of 1925, my dad turned ninety-two years old this year. My dad lived through The Great Depression and World War II.
A Dramatic Reading of a Real Break Up Letter
Dear Anxiety,
It’s not me. It’s definitely you.
We Had KFC at my Grandmother’s Memorial Service
She’d never finish hers, but the smell of the chicken was enough to remind her we loved her.
As We Go On, We Remember
I didn’t cry at this graduation, like I did all those years ago on the stage of my elementary school, but I would cry later.
Let the Yarn Spin Madly On
Sometimes I am lulled into a false sense of simplicity.
How Their Stories Became Mine
The US eventually emerged from The Great Depression, but my grandmother did not.
“MRW I stop using facebook only to start using Reddit”
I had learned pretty quickly that Reddit was not friendly to women, people in ethnic minority groups, people in sexual minority groups…or really anyone.
Another Allegory of a Cave
I don’t know how long I do this, but I have begun making a map in my head of the curves and turns in the wall.
Happy National Adoption Day
“All adoption begins with loss.” I’ve chewed on that phrase for months, and the flavor hasn’t yet gone out of it.
Behold, I Have Invented God
In a word: I am so hopelessly imperfect it frequently causes me to crawl into a blanket fort and wish the world away.
The Hero We Deserve
The raven knows that the world is no friend to the vulnerable, and so it finds as many ways as it can to diversify its armor, to outwit its prey, and to outlive its enemies.
Grief and Loss and Slapstick
Tommy Boy, the stupid, slapstick-esque comedy with Chris Farley and David Spade that was made in 1995, is not a good movie.
Gotta Catch ‘Em All
Ash Ketchum lives in a world where all animals can be pets. Ash Ketchum’s life is one big adventure, and everyone he knows has a life as full of destiny as he does.
15 Things I Learned From My Father
10. If it’s broken, don’t buy a new one: try to fix it. Hot glue, superglue, epoxy, solder. In that order.
Making a Bridesmaid Dress: A Tragic Romance in Three Parts
ENTER: EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD AND ME. Some might call the cut and color of her clothes bold and loud, while others might use the word “garish.”
Old Habits Die Hard (I’ve Heard)
There isn’t some silver-bullet cure, some as-seen-on-TV solution that’s going to come into my accident-prone, easily distracted brain and take away the challenges of the life I want to live.
Learning about Mental Illness While Mentally Ill
There were so many unknowns I couldn’t control or explain, so I just avoided them. All of them. Everything. I avoided everything.
Choose Your Own Monday
If you pick a banana, some honey, and a bowl of instant oatmeal go to 5. If you choose an everything bagel and heaping serving of cream cheese, go to 4.
Binders Full of Men
Finally, I have reached the pinnacle. This is what we have been waiting for for so long. A world without men. A world ruled by women. No longer under the thumb of the patriarchy, we are free to keep our floral soaps by the sink.
Christmas Trauma
But I have not yet figured out how to be happy in a world that is torn apart every day by war and hate, by hunger and sickness, by itself. I’ve learned this semester that being a social worker necessarily means knowing that there is more fallenness in this world than we can bear.
Happy Birthday, Mom
Now that I’m reasonably adult-ish, I’m not so hard on my mother. She still cries at all movies, and she still sings only harmonies, but I tend to stay in the room for these things now.
No Thing
For that split second, I was out there, in nothingness. Nothing above me but air, nothing in front of me but endless expanse, nothing below me but mystery.
$10,000 Razor Scooter
Hearing my mom talk lovingly about her scooter and all the great happiness it would bring her, my brothers and I all laughed like bullies in the cafeteria.
Trainwreck: A Smash Hit
If you’ve got $157 to blow in a movie theater this month and a rom-com that passes the Bechdel Test is something that catches your fancy, I’d suggest Trainwreck.
