thematically fickle

I glanced at the clock as I reached for my purse flopped on the passenger seat. It was 10:56 a.m. and I needed to hustle. I got out of my car and noticed the dark blue BMW X5 parked directly across from me. Not because I generally notice BMW X5s—expensive cars don’t blow my hair [...]

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Father’s Day in my world has historically held all the importance a birthday party holds for a Jehovah’s Witness. In fact, it’s been such an epic non-event throughout my life that I actually forgot Sam’s very first Father’s Day. A pathetic, writhe-like-a-Redworm-in-fresh-manure move, I know. I hear your gasps and tsk-tsks and would like you [...]

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After using a fahncy, marble encased bathroom stall at Bloomingdale’s this afternoon, I met my mother at the row of sinks. Incidentally, for all of her outrageousness, she’s more of a rule-follower than I am and she opted for a regular stall, whereas I have no qualms about using the one intended for the wheelchair [...]

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It began with denial. Several weeks ago, our quiet Toto toilet started making a prolonged and high-pitched hissing sound when flushed. Then one morning not long after, Sam asked whether I’d noticed the shower was slow to drain. I hadn’t noticed, actually. But maybe that’s because I’d decided to boycott bathing until one of [...]

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I’ve said it before: I will never go on a cruise. It’s in my marriage vows. I’ve also said, several times and even very recently: I hate hate. So when I use the term to describe my feelings about something, it’s meaningful in a thoughtful, serious and an I’m-totally-not-kidding kind of way.
This afternoon, as in [...]

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“This is why terrorists want to kill us.”
That was the stellar comment left on a post at boingboing.net regarding a new picture book for children, and it’s pretty much the exact reaction I had when I saw the illustrated cover of My Beautiful Mommy. The tongue-in-cheek assessment is not without merit: If this book is [...]

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One of the first things my daughter says to me after waking each day—now that she’s evolved from the larval stage of infancy into a strategically manipulative human being—is “Please eat peanut-jelly.” Then she follows it, while shaking her head slowly, with “No hair, mama. No hair today.” Generally speaking, I comply with her first [...]

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The four of us stood in the street looking down at the shattered glass, the many pieces glimmering with the headlights of each passing car. We’d just come from a restaurant in North Park where we’d stuffed our bellies with rich Italian food and red wine and sated our appetite for lengthy bouts of laughter [...]

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Some people say that real men love Jesus. I know some people say this, because they say it loudly on bumper stickers affixed to Mustangs and muscle trucks. To that, I offer this retort: Real men don’t advertise their spirituality on a bumper sticker. I’d like to see that on a car while I’m stuck [...]

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