Years ago, one of my students took me completely aback when she claimed, “People don’t change until it’s too painful not to.” I thought about that for a long time. Is it true? Are we really so reluctant to disturb the status quo, even if it’s unhappy? Are we ever capable of something more? Without [...]
Archive for the ‘Conflict’ category
Notes from Downtown
Not too long after those marches we went to in DC that so effectively stopped the war in Iraq, a friend of mine said one of those sentences that got pasted on my brain like a bumper sticker*. “Chanting in unison,” he said, “makes me ambivalent about, oh, just about everything.” I had felt this [...]
Thursday playlist: Loose associations
Last time grandpa fawcett posted here, it was a bunch of gripes. This time it’s a jumble of thoughts and enthusiasms, the ramblings of early dementia: 1.) This song “A Real Hero” by College (feat. Electric Youth) is from the movie Drive. I could not stop playing this song every day, ten times a day, [...]
Comparative Freedom
I have often wondered where I got my inability to understand the unspoken expectations of authority. For a while I figured there was some kind of cognitive gap right in the part of the brain that might do that; it feels almost like a mechanical failure. Of course it’s almost certainly the fault of radical [...]
Having a baby changes everything
“Not having kids is making aging confusing.” This was a friend’s status update. It jolted me to read it. In fact, I’m not sure how he intended it, but it took me back immediately to this documentary I watched in grad school, Daddy & Papa, about gay couples adopting kids. Now, I’ve never wanted kids. [...]
I’ve always had good taste
When my brother and I were crappy adolescents, we had very similar tastes in everything, mostly because I idolized him at the time. He loved Jimi Hendrix and German techno, so those were things that I liked. Our favorite movie was Koyaanisqatsi. We were into South American languages and medieval icons, and we both loved [...]
Happy interdependence day!
Here’s to the founders of the United States (before it was called such), those revolutionary people who had the courage to move forward in breaking away from Great Britain, knowing that if they failed, death by hanging awaited. As someone who teaches one of the more important revolutionary documents, “Common Sense,” I’d like to point [...]
On Why I No Longer do Shots with the Authors of Left Behind
S. and I met at Summer Language Nerd Convention in Bloomington in, what, 1999 or so, so it’s already more than a decade we know each other, as people say in areas where Yiddish has futzed with syntax a certain way. Years ago, when I was dating someone who worked in the movie industry*, S. [...]
I didn’t go full Sinead
My hair hasn’t been this short since I was six months old. It’s a strange feeling. When I was a little girl, my mom used to say if I didn’t want my hair brushed, she’d have to cut it all off. I said, go ahead. I hated having all that hair. It’s thick and frizzy [...]
Monday’s levity post
Being members of a dog family, Swells and I are especially tickled by this video, but I hope even those of you who aren’t can find the kind of painful joy that we feel when watching it over and over and over. Thanks to Stella for submitting this photo for today’s levity post:
