Changing the World 101
Simply begin at Blog Post #1, in which I make a rudimentary, over-simplified attempt at the “can’t we all just get along?” argument that would become a recurring theme in my work over the years.
Simply begin at Blog Post #1, in which I make a rudimentary, over-simplified attempt at the “can’t we all just get along?” argument that would become a recurring theme in my work over the years.
Then we heard an all-too-familiar sound―a jolt and an internal groan as the bus gasped for breath. We all responded in cartoon-like unison.
We receive a hearty “Welcome, hullo! Glad you’re here!” from the blueberry man, who is sitting in a plastic patio chair next to an old truck filled with boxes and buckets.
Now that my grandma has died, though, I feel almost embarrassed when people comfort me. I find myself dodging and deflecting each earnest, brow-furrowed condolence with chipper sound bytes: “It was a mercy at this point.” “It was a long time coming.” “I actually had a great time with my family. It was so fun to see my cousins from out of town!” I refuse to play into the cliché.
The fullness of the characters’ lives and the variety of their responses to such ruthless adversity forced me to think of the victims of history as more than what their oppressors made them.
For a long time, my reading habits resembled a Michael Pollan polemic, if Michael Pollan had been trying to cure the Western diet with genre fiction instead of carrots: Read fantasy. Not much else. Mostly Tolkien.
A while ago my friend Ryan won three games of Club Keno in a row.
I’m not always good at saying what I mean to say, so here: Mom likes to tell me how you could soothe my crying as a baby by carrying me around the house, pointing out people in picture frames, and telling me stories about them.
As if knowing he was a caricature of a human, Grandpa Jack did most if not all of these things with a pipe in his mouth.
When going out for ice cream, getting an exemplary hard serve cone should be your primary goal.