Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

It's been two weeks now, I think.  Today I'm sitting at the Eastern Iowa Airport, situated in the middle of a veritable corn field, heading on the next leg of my late summer journey.  Farther left, farther west.  Farther removed from the city I've long called home, that's no longer feeling like home, and yet within the same proximity to those I chatted away that night with . . . a coup, a message, a saving stream of wifi. Sitting at my computer, working on a fellowship app I was about two minutes from pushing back for a break of coffee and idle work around my apartment, but like any red blooded western soul I opted to divert my eyes and head with a couple seconds of Facebook scrolling.   That’s when the messages from friends in Turkey popped up about low flying jets, and then someone saw a tank . . . 3pm turned into a protracted timeline of messages, chats, and a game of holding our collective breaths.   Ironically, or perhaps poetically, the app is to spend fi...

A few months ago I found myself in Providence, RI.  This week I'm in Iowa City, IA for writing and work, and as I find myself continually lost among the corn stalks and melting under the sun's burning rays intensified in this open, almost barren, Midwest heat I leave you this.  In the 2002 movie The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Ashley Judd’s character flees home, family, and perhaps sanity as she escapes to a seaside hotel.   Awaking a day or so later, she learns from the hotel operator how much time has passed.   In that moment, the power of revitalization has taken over.   The viewer can almost see the sweet relief in her shoulders, even as she frantically calls her children.   Yet, the power and pressure of the young—and even more mature—mother is not the only narrative here.   Women, across the board, are all in need of that frantic night away.   The solitary night, in a bed you didn’t have to make, sheets you didn’t have to w...

As life goes, the last two months have flown faster than I care to think.  Yet, they have slugged by so painfully that I can not bear to think of them.  This past week, especially, has broken me in ways I didn't think possible. I quit a job that I was never wanted at, that I was treated so poorly a second class citizen got more respect than me, and in the end I was always left under water and barely breathing.  In more ways than one I feel like a perpetual failure, as I've wasted far too many years trying to succeed in academia to never be given more than a passing bone and used to provide someone else with leverage to receive promotions and pay raises.  Publications and reimbursement grants don't amount to much of anything when you are crushed under suffocating rent, student loans having passed critical mass, and nights littered with the inability to sleep from the side effects of Lupus and the stress of knowing you are less than a paycheck away from collapse. ...

There's been an organic breakfast food ad fluttering about the net, and the jist of it is all the super feasts women perform first thing in the morning project from the reel.  One: something like 25 percent of us check email before even getting out of bed. I--if you didn't guess--am one of those women. So, a little after 8 am yesterday--as I didn't have a full cup of coffee in me yet nor was I out of bed--my hazy eyes and comfortable body found a jolting start.  On a day working from home, the lack of commute usually means a few more articles to lazily read and a moment to dick around online. Hence, when I got an alert someone tagged me in a photo on Facebook I didn't think twice about it. Until I opened it. Did I tell you this was at 8 am, well slightly after? Between the lack of coffee and such when I opened the link I was certainly taken aback.  I had forgotten it was even a "day." Then . . . then I saw a photo of me and a friend clowning around at m...