I will always associate Florence with grieving.  I went there in the death throes of my ambition to be an attorney.  In a way, Florence was my attempt to make finishing law school seem possible, or palatable. I spent quite a bit of time roaming around and shopping with a judge who was spending her summer teaching.  She spent much of our time ( Read more... )

I just read this very right-on, and very pointed post about the Occupy New York movement on Antidotal Evidence. 
Essentially, the author is discussing the level of privilege many of
the protesters seem to have.  A lot of them talk about student loan debt
and foreclosure, which means they at least had the means to go to
college and buy a house. Once.

( Read more... )

I learned to cook because my adopted mother hated cooking.  That reads like she hated cooking in some liberated way, so she never did it and I had to learn to wield a spatula in order to eat.  Quite the opposite.

My mother believed firmly that women, once married, had a moral imperative to be housewives.  So she always cooked.  She just hated it.  I ( Read more... )

I took some time this week to become a mother-in-law and a grandmother.

That is to say, my son took the time this week to get married, and then in rapid order, to become a father.  It was quite the week.

I have become completely convinced that I am destined, in any arena where I judge others, to become those others.  A karmic way of reminding me that ( Read more... )

I was thinking of writing a blog about how I learned to stop worrying and love the Banns.  (Too Ethan Frome? Well, I endorse torture of the language in this instance, as national security requires a literary/cinematic hybrid pun…)

Just for the sake of full disclosure, I decided to go dig out this gem written for a Con Law class my senior year as ( Read more... )

So you are in the grocery store, and you are being Good Welfare Mom.
Bargain shopping, buying generic. Lots of beans and rice, lots of
veggies in season. No fruit unless it is apples - they are cheap. Lots
of leafy greens to make sure you all get your iron and your vitamins.
Good, healthy food. Nothing pre-made - you have to cook everything
yourself if ( Read more... )

I suffer from what I like to call straightface.

No one ever registers my queerness on sight.  Jill says she did, but she has superpowers.

I get that ‘passing’ has its advantages, in places like rural rest-stops, for example.  For just going about one’s business without feeling or hearing casual hatred.  I get that when I wander a grocery store with ( Read more... )

 I was 19 when I had my son, and no one approved.  So naturally I believed I had to be a perfect mother.  I breastfed, used cloth diapers, co-slept, and responded to every cry like a good little attachment-parent.

As my son weaned himself, my hormones apparently took a plunge, and my mood went down with them.  I was overcome with morbid thoughts of ( Read more... )

List Girl: “I saw her out, and she didn’t even say hello to me.  And she calls herself a feminist.”

She had called our mutual friend to report me for this violation of Girl Code.

I see a flaw in this logic. And I explain it to the Mutual Friend who has taken on this poor girl’s cause: ”Feminism taught me we don’t have to be nice to people we don ( Read more... )

Me:

Dear Jill, okay that’s dumb. Dearest Jill: When I met you, I’d relented. I was cynical. I was cynical about love and the benefit of lovers. In fact, I had determined to become a spinster. I had cats. I started watching television.

All through my growing up years and into adulthood, I had this dream where suddenly, I could not speak so that ( Read more... )