Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

Things I've found myself unprepared for. . . well, there's a list, and like any red-blooded human being they range from hysterical, tragic, to embarrassing. These days . . . Lady Gaga's new album hits home more than I would have expected, especially since I'm not a large LG fan.  Yet, for several days--okay a near week--I've been blaring it pretty regular.  That being said, the irony resonates as between blaring LG and extended Beyonce playlists I have been editing and writing women's narratives.  Why, yes . . . yes, I see the oxymoronic humor.  I certainly wasn't prepared for that album to shock me awake these days.  Parallel to that, though, that stupid thing called Lupus has been knocking on the inside cellar door again. The knock, knock of Lupus for me typically comes with crushing muscle cramps, joint on fire between the prongs of a c-clamp, and kidneys knocking out their own beat to Use Your Illusion II .  The slow ballad beats of "November Ra...

I find myself eating pickles and peanut butter, as I’ve had a hankering for days.  No, I am not pregnant.  Far from it.  Instead, pickles and peanut butter are an old staple I picked up from my days in the borderlands of Dixie, which is really just Dixie under a defensive name, in Kentucky.  More so, the Maysville kids generally all know the simple joys of pickles and peanut butter.  That town, a sleepy little one of about 9,000 along the Ohio River in northern Kentucky, has resonated in my mind’s eyes for nearly twenty years now.  We lived there for two years of high school, but those two years—and not withstanding the total of nine states I’ve lived in—seemed to have shaped and marked me the most.  Perhaps it was that I was in high school, perhaps it was that the kids did well on bringing me into the many folds, clichés, and complexities of Maysville.  Perhaps . . . perhaps it was just the natural course of life, and the trials of existenc...

Someone, not long ago, asked me when I was going to write about 9-11.  I had no response, and I expertly avoided the question.  Why? Well . . . here's the best I can do. That day, a decade ago, still seems too close for comfort, too surreal to be true, and like a dream.  I didn't loose people that day, but friends of mine lost cohorts, lovers, and confidants.  To be cliche, we all lost a sense of stability, bliss, and cohesion.  Yet, for scores of people not located within this mecca then, or now, the 9-11 day doesn't ring with the same level of sobriety, somber, and dismay as it does for those within a stone's throw of its ashes. I remember what I was wearing, I remember what I was teaching when the first planes hit, I remember  . . . hours waiting in a computer lab constantly hitting refresh to find a message from a friend.  I remember sitting in shock, lying in my bathtub long after the bubbles had died, the water had gone cold, and th...