Update Since My Last

I’ve done some specific things that have helped me cope. I won’t lay them out here specifically, since I think everyone has to find their own way on this, but I’ve found ways to express my opinions on my body, in my office, and through my wallet. If you want to know, I’m happy to…

Helping Each Other and Hunkering Down

I’d been waiting until after the election to get back to blogging about my usual stuff. Of course, I’d been assuming that Hillary Clinton would win, and that “Getting Back to it” would be “getting back to normal.” I’m not sure what normal means now. I haven’t been able to eat since this morning. I…

Politics in the Little City

The political arena is heating up in the little city. There are local elections for school board and city council. Our neighbor is very involved, so we’ve heard more about it than we would usually hear. We currently have four yard signs up, and we answer a lot of questions about them from the boys,…

The Hard Conversations

I’ve said before that being a parent is increasingly taxing my ability to explain the quandaries of physics, biology, and abstract math. There are also questions of civics and equality to address, but I tend to do better with those. In the last few weeks, we’ve had conversations about vaccines, the end of the world,…

Talking to Kids about Race

Parenting is full of the hard stuff. I’ve been niggling with this for a while, but it appeared to me last night that I really need to start consciously and clearly talking to the kids about race. We’ve talked about it a little before, noting that while some of our friends have different color skin,…

Yellow Suns

Last week, I took the boys to Charlottesville, while I went to Polyface Farm. It was kind of a long car trip, and without another adult in the car, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I always think it’s fine to travel with them on an airplane because I’m not actually driving the device…

Groupon Guilt

I’ve been troubled lately. I’ve bought some Groupons recently, mostly for yoga classes, and now I’m starting to feel really guilty about it. When it was the local Bikram hot yoga studio, and I was going with my friend Liz, and I had a very tight budget, I didn’t feel that guilty–mostly because I didn’t…

In the Last Week…

I voted absentee in person. Went super quick and was worth the trade off of not getting to be really excited to do it on election day. I took Gilbert to his 2-year-old well child check. He did very well–except for when the doctor asked him to jump, he stared at her and wouldn’t do…

On My Street

I’m having a lot of trouble focusing on grading response papers after teaching my classes today, so I thought I’d let you in on a little blog post I’ve been working on in my head. On my street there are big houses and small houses, and thanks to my across the street neighbors, I’ve gotten…