Executor

I pulled the plug.  It may as well have been a trigger, Says my heart; I closed the book myself, And cannot mourn.  Some loss is irrevocable; Powerless, you cannot stop The truck, the bullet, Turn back time. Denial, anger, bargaining,  Railing at life and death, Waves of grief, up and down, Washing. But some…

Why I Feel Alienated by Liberals and Conservatives Both

By a poor person. By any standard I’m poor. I make about $200 a month more than I pay in monthly rent. In a good month. I depend on government food stamps because I need a good chunk of that $200 for gas and insurance on my old, fuel-inefficient vehicle to take me to my…

Nightmare Skies

I have lived my worst nightmare  more than once.  It’s just as bad as it sounds, and not.  Anticipation holds more fear; fear holds more pain, and pain more grief, than the nightmares themselves.  Even nightmare skies hold stars. 

Ten Things Millennials Understand 

In the history of maligned generations, mine may be the most severely, relentlessly and unfairly maligned. It’s true that we move back in with our parents and that we don’t go to church, but it’s not all bad. Here are some things we Millennials get right. I’m not saying no previous generations understood these things……

Screw the Patriarchy 

And How Women have been Doing It for Millennia  Just to be quite clear up front, I’m definitely a feminist. I think it’s ridiculous that women earn 70 cents to a man’s dollar and that in spite of making up half the country’s population we comprise only 17% of Congress. Women’s behavior and clothing is…

Don’t Play Someone Else’s Game

My father likes to tell stories about a certain soccer coach who gave pithy pieces of advice often applicable to life as much as to the game.  One day the team was set to play against another school. The Brutes, as we will call them, were not really a soccer team; they usually played football…

The Absolute Worthlessness of Guilt 

Guilt: the most useless of human emotions.  In general, I’m a real fan of emotions. Like pain, emotions act as signals that something is wrong and needs to change. People without emotions (or those who are out of touch with their emotions) have a hard time making good, healthy decisions; again, similarly to people who…

You Are Too

“You’re amazing!” “You’re so strong!” “I really admire you.” You’d think I would like hearing those things. Compliments, and compliments that don’t involve body parts, are good things, right?  The truth is, I never quite know how to respond.  When people say I’m amazing, it feels like they are setting me in a different category….