Before you say a single word, I know. I didn\’t even bother to look to see the last time I posted here, but lissen … No, I mean – lissen! Have you looked outside lately? Stuff\’s real. I just waxed poetic over on Academia.edu in response to a very nice fellow academic who\’d read a little diddy I wrote several months ago about the possible influence of the \’rona on educational spaces. If I was in music, it would be my track that went platinum. Anyway, this nice academic had downloaded my paper oh, what … let\’s just say about…

I\’ve been thinking a lot about getting old. There are things that happen as the days go on and it seems easy to fall into the rhythm of it all. Achy joints, flabby skin, grey hair, medications … yet the changes one sees in oneself can be subtle that the years go by slowly in the mirror. It\’s easy to ask the question do I look that old when looking at television shows or movies with people of the same age. Every ache creates concerning opportunities: what is that? should I call a doctor? am I being dramatic? did (grandmother,…

So much advice is about exhaling. Not to diminish the value of letting out the breath held, but without taking in, there can be no letting out. This afternoon, for just a little while, I sat in the sun, inhaling its warmth until I couldn\’t breathe. It was glorious. I had my eyes closed and listened to the sounds of the world — the wind in my neighbor\’s backyard palm trees, the rustle of the big crooked pine in my yard, the vroom-putter of the neighbor\’s motorcycle, the skipped cylinders of a car going by behind me. Eventually, I had…

I sit in the sun with my arms crossed: I can feel its rays burning my flesh beneath my sweater. I close my eyes and wonder as I watch the floaties: I once heard that eye floaties are bits of dirt and debris that get trapped in the fluid on the outside of the eyeball. They look like amoebas, microscope viruses. My eyes are dirty. I sit in the sun with my arms crossed and eyes closed, listening to the world around me: the breeze in the trees; the sounds of traffic on the street outside my property fence, on…

Furtive … Such a wonderful word. It’s the one that came to mind as I laid in bed this morning. The day had started without me — it wasn’t yet bright, but there was light outside, which filtered in through the bathroom windows. The running joke when I bought this house was that the person who owned it was a vampire. During the walk-through, we couldn’t see the bedroom very well because he had it super-dark in there; the story we actually got was that he worked nights, slept days, that sort of thing. I do like the vampire story…

I’ve been reading a book called Burnout by Nagoski and Nagoski. My counselor recommended it and I do, too, even though I’m not finished with it yet. There were lots of bits I earmarked and underlined in the early pages, but what really nabbed me was the discussion of the inner madwoman. I’m paraphrasing but the idea is that we all have an inner madwoman, who lives in the attic (our minds); she is the bridge between who we are and who we think we are supposed to be. She says and does all the things we don’t dare. There…

I might be a little bigger than I was when the Don’t Eat That! blog post was written. A couple years ago, I wrote a blog post with info about things you shouldn’t feed your canine family members. The post also included other tips from the site, The Goody Pet. One thing that was missing was comfort info. If you have a dog, large or small, you probably spend far too much on food, treats, clothes, leashes, collars, and maybe even mats and beds. Just like us, many dogs (or is it just mine?) like to lay on or under…

The tears were salty and made my view blurry as I washed dishes this morning. It was 5:30 am and I realized my dad would have turned 80 today. I mean, I realized October 17th was coming; I was reading my devotional a couple mornings ago and thought Wow, Dad’s birthday would have been in a couple days. This coming December 9th will mark 25 years since he was killed in that car accident and I’m still angry. I’m angry because I didn’t get to see the driver who killed him, to look him in the face. I was pregnant,…