I hurled down the Norton Anthology of American Literature. It was an undergraduate text, but heavy, and I had hopes. No. It ricocheted harmlessly off my windshield. Next, I tried the MLA Handbook. One bounce and it fell onto the pavement. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, Critical Theory Since Plato, The Heart and Stomach of a King, and The English Language: A Historical Introduction. All of them thumped against the glass. Some of them lodged at the top of the hood or caught in the windshield wipers. The rest cascaded down into the parking lot. But none of them started so much as a hairline crack.… Read the rest
Tag Archives: Jessie
Inside me lies a dinosaur in slumber, recumbent and half submerged. I try to keep her this way, because that terrible lizard roars destruction. But sometimes, no amount of medication can keep her from snorting to the surface, her enormous size swelling up through my skin and out my mouth. And on those days, I feel the boil. I thrash to free myself from the scalding heat. And my mania has teeth. She will seize you as gladly in her jaws as me. Or she’ll take us both down, hold us burning together until she ebbs back inside my skin.
This week, Velvet Verbosity is asking for 100 words on slumber.… Read the rest
I attended a mini-conference last week, and because I am me, I’ve been mulling it over ever since. It was one of these parenting seminars destined to be either spectacular or spectacularly dumb. I should assert here that my inner skeptic was expecting the latter.
A little background. I do not approve of parenting via the fluffy-cloud method. Scott and I once paid some $400 for a parenting course that was ALL 1970s schmaltz. The class text even used the phrase “hang-up”. Does it get more 1970s than “hang-up”? And yet, I loved that syrupy thing. Every annoying idea that irked me actually had practical applications that were anything but stupid.… Read the rest
Grad school exacerbated my bipolar. I’ve mentioned that before. And it took away my writing completely for four horrible years. And what’s worse was that I felt it going away. I took some creative writing classes and suddenly had nothing at all to say. Each piece was a struggle, and as I finished the final story, I realized that there simply were no more ideas. None at all.
It wasn’t just a matter of writer’s block. Writer’s block implies a hurdle that one can overcome. There was nothing at all in my way. I was still sitting down regularly, trying every trick I knew, and there was just nothing there.… Read the rest
Lest you think I am a total Scrooge (I am) let me pause in my Christmas ranting to tell you something that makes me really happy this time of year. There are several things. But heading up the list is MY BIRTHDAY, which is coming up on Wednesday. People, I was born 11 days before Christmas, and because my Mom is that kind of mother, I never once in childhood lost my day to the big holiday looming soon after. December 14th has always been, and will always be, my favorite day of the year.
Now, getting other kids to come to my party was always a challenge.… Read the rest
I’ve learned a lot from my new radio. It’s given me a much stronger grounding in top forty basics, and it’s about a thousand percent better than Pandora. Not to mention, it’s available in my car nearly all the time (except under concrete).
I’ve always been rather notorious for mishearing and misinterpreting lyrics. Scott had a great time convincing me that Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” was not actually “Red Hot Love” when we first started dating. Also that it was by a group called Golden Earring, whose name had passed me by. (And did you know that Golden Earring also did “When the Bullet His the Bone”? … Read the rest
I’m a southern storm. I come on hot and angry, then I brood, and linger, and eventually lose my temper again. It’s not good. In fact, it’s horrible. And it’s not something that I have any control over myself. My temper is an outside force that everyone, me included, has to just ride out when it blows up.
I’m about to tell you the big reason I’ve been so stressed out lately, but I should first say that I’ve found a topic that even I’m uncomfortable blogging about. I really debated this post. I’m not the sort who keeps herself to herself.… Read the rest