Before I Was A Grownup

  • An Olde Memorie

    I was riding my bicycle to choir practice this morning, and suddenly I smelled something (what?  I do not know) that sucked me through a vortex of a decade and spat me out onto the sopping green grass of a foggy spring morning in England. It was 1999, in April, just a few days after the Columbine shootings, if you can believe how long ago that was now.  We’d settled into our B&B rooms at the Quilt and Croissants on Evesham Place, our clothes unpacked and hung up in the freestanding wardrobes.  J and I were in a tiny attic room with two dormer windows.  E and K were put…

  • Trajectory

    Do you ever feel like you’ve been gently, insistently redirected?  Herded.  Shepherded.  There is a distinction, but in either case, direction from an outside source is implicit.  A sheep-i-ness is implied.  I have let the slings and arrows of daily existence make me go baaa. I sometimes feel my youth slipping away from me, which is foolish.  Which is understandable.  Which is frightening.  I’m three beers into a Saturday evening spent writing a legal brief.  The beers are to reassert my reckless youth.  The beers are to remind me that it’s Saturday, even though I’ve worked through most of the day, pausing only to run errands at Target with my…

  • This Post is Clearly Not by Me!

    It’s blog share time!  The one time of year when we get to write what we want and post it on someone else’s blog, anonymously!  So don’t be puzzled by what you read below.  Enjoy!  (At the bottom, you will find the link to all participants in this year’s blog share, and no, I’m not telling which post is mine). **************** I really, really, really want to have a kid. Well, a couple, actually. The thing is, I don’t. I teach. I get a fresh crop of 100 or so children every year. I don’t want to go home from that, just to take care of more children. I don’t want to…

  • Approximately Forty Minutes of Awesome

    This is my band.  My old band.  We are for sale.  Or rather, our album is.  Though we are, too, if you live in the Triangle area and would like some roots rock at your way cool function. You can download MP3s for 99 cents each.  All of those 99 cents go right back into the band, nobody makes any money off of this bad boy!  Consider giving a few of these a listen.  Redline is awesome.  Pooreyes.  What I’m Waiting for.  The reviewers really liked Once in a While.  Jack loves ’em all – he dances like a fool.  He frequently says – “You hand?  This way.  Come on.”…

  • Red Rubber Ball Addendum – Breakup Songs

    The past post got me thinking about breakup songs.  The song I listened to during the breakup memorialized by that post was awesome.  It powered me through some workouts.  It was not the kind of song that stands the test of time – it was one of those angsty emo rock kind of things that will flicker out of popularity any day now – but it was what I needed right then.  I remember there were times when I listened to it on repeat, and it seemed to heft me bodily up out of my chair and get me onto that treadmill/into the library/making some dinner – whatever mundane thing…