thematically fickle

Following the release last week of new statistics supporting a decline in U.S. abortion rates—statistics that both pro-life and pro-choice advocates claim favor their stance—I decided to link on over to the Guttmacher Institute website to see what I could see with my own eyes.
The Guttmacher Institute is the nonprofit organization focused (hallelujah!) on reproductive [...]

[Read more →]

Healthcare sucks, and the world keeps spinning on her axis
“An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern.”
—Tony Benn, former member of British Parliament
Because my intuitive child knows that I can’t possibly have imagined a more harrowing way to ring in the New Year than to navigate our nation’s health care system, she decided [...]

[Read more →]

Here’s some free birth control for anyone on the fence
(Adapted from a previous blog post.)
I remember once, before I was a mom, well before I even thought I wanted to be a mom—which was only about three hours before I became a mom—being lectured by neighbors at my local dog park about how I must [...]

[Read more →]

A few things in our sorry little culture that make me an angry woman
While navigating my way to the day job the other morning, I got stuck in traffic that’s all too common with any weekday commute involving a freeway. There I sat, idling away my time and my gas, calming my nerves to the [...]

[Read more →]

A traditionally twisted visit home for the holidays
“Are you going to visit the other half of her family?” Our fingers touched as she took the money from my hand. I was purchasing a few things to complete my airplane bag of tricks—dollar bin items that would enable me to pull an endless array of unfamiliar, [...]

[Read more →]

What every girl needs is a friend to roam withNext to a life partner who loves you unconditionally—–who accepts how you, the loud talker, tend to forget that a mobile phone is mobile and can be taken to another part of the house, and who forgives your unfortunate habit of leaving hair strands in the [...]

[Read more →]

A day at the pumpkin patch is everything I’d imagined it could be
It isn’t often that an event lives up to the Cinderella anticipation surrounding it. Take New Year’s Eve, for example—an occasion to which orbital expectations are pinned. Inevitably, someone gets dumped before midnight, breaks a heel, becomes mascara-smeared belligerent and pukes in the [...]

[Read more →]

Or just toss it out the window when you’re done with it
Has everyone in this country gone–as my daughter Ruby likes to say–cuckoo bananas? I mean, I realize that, at times, I could make the very most of a padded room. But generally speaking, when I step back and dare to behold the belching demon [...]

[Read more →]

(My most recent column as published yesterday in CityBeat.)
On any given weekend in the College Area, police officers can be spotted busting up raucous parties. (Remember those days? Yeah–good times.) I’ve watched from my front porch as kids stream from the houses like clowns from a Gremlin, noisily flood the streets, climb into their [...]

[Read more →]

(My latest column as published today in CityBeat.)
There are many outrageous, salacious, delectable news stories beckoning me on a daily basis, the least of which this past week included our homegrown pride and joy, Miss Teen South Carolina herself. In case you need reminding, she’s the beauty and brainiac of—and I quote—”our education, like, such [...]

[Read more →]