When I began writing MINOR DRAMAS & OTHER CATASTROPHES, I was in my fifteenth year of classroom teaching, a job I love. In fact, I never deviated in my desire to become a teacher since first having an inkling at age eleven. I idolized my teachers and coaches, desperately wanted to please them, and delighted in the quirks they brought to their work. I couldn’t wait to join their professional…
Unexpected friendships are, to me, something of an adult phenomenon. As kids, we see potential friendships everywhere – from people both real and imaginary. It’s only as we start getting older that we realize we might fit in with one group better than another. The divide usually begins somewhere around middle school and then intensifies in our high school years. People splinter into various cliques and groups, usually with similar…
I loathed everything about Emmett Woodshanks (not his real name — his real name was far less Dickensian. He also didn’t look like Alan Rickman. I probably would have liked him a lot more if he had). I loathed his nearly-bald head, with its wreath of orange hair. I loathed his close-cropped beard and mustache. I loathed his wire-rimmed circular glasses. I loathed the way he licked his upper lip…
(This week’s theme is “Back to School.” I never was much of a first day of school junkie, so I thought I’d turn it on its head a little.) I’m hopelessly nostalgic. It’s pretty sad. I can even make myself nostalgic for the present. In college, I used to walk across the campus and notice the way the brick buildings cut into the deep blue of the sky and think,…
I’ve written several posts about my amazing, wonderful mother, which you can read here, here and here. So, for a change, I’m going to write about someone else’s mother. Sadly, I think she may be trapped in a well. Marche Taylor is the high school senior who was kicked out of her prom because school officials deemed her dress was too risqué and insisted she leave. She refused. She asked…
I’ve never really been scared of things that go bump in the night. Sure, when I was little, I had the occasional paranoid conviction that something was lurking just outside my bedroom window or under my bed or in my closet. But somewhere along the way, life just ripped that fear out of me. It’s actually the scariest things that ever happened to me that have made me primarily convinced…
Well, I thought I’d covered “learning the hard way” last week and that this week I’d write something short and maybe even off-topic. But it turns out I’ve learned many things the hard way and should perhaps write a book on the subject. For now, here are are some of the less serious, but hard learned lessons from my life. From childhood: If you cut an arch-shaped wedge out of…
The way I read is similar to the way I eat: sporadic, thoroughly disorganized, and just as likely to occur in the car on the way somewhere as while I’m sitting down. And just so you know, I’m not joining Deb Kristy in the “reading on the road” club — trust me, my driving is dangerous enough without that. I listen to a lot of books because I know I’d…
I like to tell myself that I didn’t commit any crimes, that the things I did fell more into the area of “pranks.” Who doesn’t like a good prank after all? Prankster sounds so much better than say- delinquent. Examples of some escapades include: – If you pour baby powder at the base of someone’s closed door, and then blow it under the door with a hair dryer it will…
I have never reached an orgasm from washing my hair in the way that the commercials promise me. Never. Not even when I buy the shampoo that should be made from crushed diamonds and distilled elephant saliva because it is so expensive. When I toss my head with abandon like the women in hair commercials it gives me a headache. I suspect this is due to the velocity of my…
