For those who know me and know that I own my baldness just as much as I owned my badass big red hair, this will come as a surprise. Not what I did, but that I had to even think about it as a radical move. Last night, before I went to bed, I changed my profile photograph on Linked In to one of me bald. It has been three years this month since I…
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they…
I woke this morning charged with a new challenge – accepting myself just the way I am. Today, I will no longer critically speak to myself in [Louise] whispers about how I need to lose 17 lbs or else I am doomed to be that overweight, aging woman whose curves used to be meaningful and are now just shameful. Today, I will not pummel myself for not having finished the book I started writing a…
I love that video of Chimamanda Adichie on why We should all be feminists. I love the part when she asks why she would be interested in a man who finds her intimidating. I saw a video that was being passed around today where a woman says that those women who say it will take a strong man to appreciate a strong woman are dead wrong. That being a strong woman is what will turn…
I bring you the uncanny Yahoo horoscope: Taurus You might be needlessly licking your wounds from an emotional disappointment yesterday. Although warrior Mars is waving his banner today, you don’t have to go to battle to achieve a victory. The truth is you only need to be honest and speak from your heart. However, be ready to back up your words with action, if needed. There’s no reason to look behind you when there is…
Glorious day here in the Crescent City and you had to get out, out, out and enjoy it. So we rented a surrey for five in City Park and went on an outdoor adventure. With Tin at the helm with the map, we were happy to follow him anywhere. Let’s surrey to a stone soul picnic ….
The house that backs up to my yard and basically is the border of my yard, the one that the crooked contractor bought for $30k, then set fire to, and then went to prison for cheating all the post-2005 Federal Flood people, the one who transferred the house to his mother so they wouldn’t take it while he was in prison, but his mother died while he was in, and then he died when he…
Yang: Tin has a girlfriend at school and she loves My Little Pony and turned him onto it. He had to come to grips with the fact that other boys at school said this was the hallmark of girldom. He had to reconcile his love for the androgynous Rainbow Dash and effervescent Twilight Sparkle. And truth to tell, he has done a good job except for occasionally wanting me to keep the fact that he…
A friend sent me a text this morning after a difficult conversation with someone she had given her heart over to. Her heart was not being handled the way she had hoped and so she grew more restless, defensive, and hurt during the relationship. Is this love? she has asked too many times. A friend gave me the Five Love Languages for Children where I read that Tin’s love language is in physical touch. It’s…
At 1:45 PM on March 5, 2009, Tin was born. He weighed 6 lbs and 7.3 oz and was 20” long. His mother lovingly held him in her arms. His father was not present. The next nine months were challenging. I met him on December 7, 2009, in 14 degree weather, when he was handed to me wearing nothing but a diaper. I dressed him in my friend’s daughter’s clothes, including pink socks. They say…