April 2011
2 posts
My Choice
By Bill McChesney
I want my breakfast served at eight With ham and eggs upon the plate. A well-broiled steak I’ll eat at one And dine again when day is done.
I want an ultramodern home And in each room a telephone; Soft carpets, too, upon the floors And pretty drapes to grace the doors. A cozy place of lovely things, Like easy chairs with inner springs,
And then, I’ll get a...
October 2009
4 posts
Mildred Petrushevsky
November 5, 1929 - October 16, 2009
1 tag
If
By Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you But make allowance for their doubting too, If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream–and not...
World Teacher's Day, 2009 →
To Ms. Beemer, Ms. Teliatnik, Ms. Tintner, Ms. Grossman, Mr. Sukram, Mr. McKinnis, Ms. Doosenberry & Professors Silano, Baird, Rose, Lesk, and Stokes: thank you.
September 2009
6 posts
WatchAn inventory of the invisible
“I want to love, Lord,
I need to love.
All my being is desire;
My heart,
My...”
– Michel Quoist, “Prayers of Life”
1 tag
Credo
The Prayer of St. Francis:
Lord, make me a channel of your peace; where there is hatred let me bring your love, where there is injury, your pardon, where there is doubt, true faith in you; where there is despair in life let me bring hope, where there is darkness, only light, and where there is sadness, ever joy; O Master grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled, as to console; to...
Jensen Bush
was the name of the boy who lived next door to us just before we left Sri Lanka. ’Jensen Bush’ actually was his first name (after George Bush Sr., no less), but everyone, mercifully, just called him Jensen. And since he was the only boy my age who lived close by, we spent many Saturdays playing together.
Jensen was a little taller than me, had almost brown curly hair, and often wore...
Yesterday
was my father’s birthday. He would have been sixty years old.
People, whenever they hear that he died when I was around four years old, usually say something to the likes of “Oh, so you didn’t really know him that well.” My first response is to tell them to fuck off. In my head, at least. Then I reply, politely, “Well, I do remember a bit.”
I do actually...
When we left Sri Lanka, I was given a parting gift...
August 2009
4 posts
My mother
has spent her life, officially, as an aid worker, an airline ground hostess, and a teacher.
On less official grounds, she’s played the role of eldest child, only daughter, twin sister, senior prefect, dancer, marching band leader, style maven, wife, widow, single mother, cook, baker, wedding planner, interior decorator, seamstress, tutor, and homemaker.
In short, as far back as I can...
Of the few things I still have that belonged to my...
My father
was a sailor, and spent the first decade or so of his working life travelling to some fifty-five countries. Then he met my mother, got married, and never set foot off land again.
He died in 1988, when I was four years old.
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the...”
– William Shakespeare: Hamlet, I, iii, 78-80