This is the truth as far as it's always been: I persevere because I must, and I do what I can to make my life bearable because I have no other real choice.  Giving up is anathema.  Misery is a waystop, not a final destination.  Not for me.

I work with what I have.  I'm used to saving and budgeting and scrounging for what I need, and I know I've been ( Read more... )

I teach writing, so people naturally ask me if I write.  What they really want to know is if I write for publication, and more specifically, if I write books.  So when I tell them I work on some web sites for fun and that I blog, the expectation on their faces fades and I can see them put a mental strike through my name.  Anybody can do those ( Read more... )

What to do with all these ghosts?

Not just the ghosts of the dead - although they are difficult enough, since they often refuse to stay in their graves and haunt our associations and decisions, whether we like it or not.

No, there's a wide world of ghosts out there, sending echoes through our lives like Jacob Marley's wails, and many of those ( Read more... )

My mom's old pastor is a sweet old man, and I have always liked him. He and his wife met my mom when she was ten years old and they were much younger, and they've kept in touch all these years. He and his wife have reminded me of my grandparents like few other people because they share the faith with which my grandparents lived and died. When the ( Read more... )

A new kind of scarlet letter can be painted on cheaters at the "cheater registry," a web site that aims to create a searchable database of social transgressors.  Adultery isn't a criminal offense in the United States, strictly speaking, but the basic similarities between a cheater registry and a sex offender registry aren't coincidental.  Molesters ( Read more... )

March 3rd was, for some, America's Sexuality Day, dedicated to honoring the open expression of sexual knowledge and free speech about sexual topics. It was held on the anniversary of The Comstock Act of 1873. (It was also, coincidentally, the nineteenth anniversary of my first kiss, but I digress.)

When I was around eleven, a family friend died of ( Read more... )

Have you ever killed someone’s dreams ( Read more... )

My grandma told me this evening that if I talk to my half-sister, I mustn't say anything to weaken her faith in this difficult time.  She almost didn't give me room to answer her concern, and I'm not sure she heard me much when I responded.  Not that I gave her a full reply.  What I said was that I would never do that, and that I know people need ( Read more... )

I'm ready for the stress-related dreams to stop now ( Read more... )

This morning, I dreamt that I had been chosen by some unimaginably lucky chance for a seat on a space shuttle.  I had been getting training and I was going to go where I had yearned to be all of my childhood, into space.  But just as final preparations were being made, I was overwhelmed by my fear of heights and flying and the vacuum, and I freaked ( Read more... )