Oddly enough, I started writing about bucket lists… and ended up exploring my thoughts on wills. So here we are. I suppose I felt I had to set bucket lists in the context of our wills, because I see both as a snapshot of our hopes and desires at…
If the women in your life disappeared, what would happen? Reading about this today, I realized I’d find it hard to get much done: no bus driver to take me to work no one to purchase the library’s journals no one to manage the students who lend books no…
I’m a big pusher for libraries. “Did you know they have free stuff?” I say. You roll your eyes. Yes, you know. “I mean, they have books, but did you know they have other free stuff?” *** It’s easy to take the free thing for granted, but many early…
As a child, I drank in folktales in all colors, from the olive book of fairy tales to the crimson and lilac books. And then, I tried rustling through the coats in our large wooden wardrobe to find Narnia, or sweeping under the rug to find a virtuous girl’s golden…
I love David Sherlock’s post on the blog posts he didn’t write in 2017. It lets him set aside some rather unwieldy beasts, yet share what he’s been wrestling with. His never-posts range from education to gendered toys to ‘everything that is shit in academia,’ which is exactly the…
I’ve previously shared what I know of modern Kazakh names, as have other authors. But what about ancestral names? My motivation here is a growing connection to the SCA, a group fond of historical fencing, archery, brewing, and crafts. These American hobbyists connect to European history by developing a historical…
You’ve probably heard of “culture shock,” that initial wallop when everything’s different. Some folks, like Debbie Stephens, hit a wall when they’ve “bathed and washed my hair in a bucket… eaten with monkeys, been roommates with scorpions… and eaten foods I can’t pronounce.” But you can also experience “culture…
As I mentioned, I recently tried being a guy on Facebook to see what would happen. But even as a guy, I still only see the ladies. Not that my lady friends try to be dominant; in fact, many are quite self-effacing. But with 400+ lady friends, the posts-photos-ads-articles all reinforce each other: inspirational…
Recently, I got fed up with being a lady on Facebook. The marketing. The advertisements for empowered baby clothes (“she’s a rocket scientist!”) and faintly healthy food (“try three papaya-sweet corn bars for only $12.99!”). I tried adjusting my ad settings, denying my prior interests in travel, science, and…
“Do you need this?” I ask, holding up the ballerina music box. “…And this?” I hold up a handful of seashells and a crushed sand dollar in a plastic baggie. Julie shakes her head. I quickly sort things into piles, pulling her back into the room when she starts…