Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

These days, as they are shorter and the darkness longer, the temps are dropping and the once brilliantly colored trees are starting to drop their seasonal garlands.  I've always loved fall, which admitting it probably makes me a little basic white bitch.  Usually I would say oh well, but these days . . . eh.  National events aside, the power to persevere in the face of life itself is sometimes lost on even me.  Moments in between, and stopping to literally smell the falling leaves, has kept a balance.  Not a metaphorical one--as that one is just crazy, spiraled, and ugly--but a literal moment in time to stop and stare. A little array from a Long Island campus (left to and far right and the Bronx in the middle).  Yet, these days I've got an ugly planner . . . one that is colored, just about indexed, and as I'm told every minute of the day is planned.  Just about . . .That being said, a crushing schedule comes on the heels of needing to find norm...

I'm been waiting to find the moment to escape back into Seattle.  Don't ask me about recent events.  This, this, is your (and my) diversion.   *** In what feels like a lifetime ago, I saw my original hometown for a moment last summer.  In all reality, it was how I ended my long sojourn off the east coast, through the midwest, and nestled in the peaceful slopes of the Cascade basin in Oregon.  As I took one last Greyhound up to Portland, walked less than half a block to the train depot, and boarded I begrudgingly accepted the ideal retreat my summer had been was already fading.   Limey had already been returned , my clothes were packed and shimmied into one carry on, one back pack, and one suitcase.  Six week's worth of muscle, memory, and trinkets were packed away in my literal and metaphorical spaces.   As a long weekend, at the end of August, rounded out my travels there's something to be said about the tranquility of returning to a...

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...

So, my brave, weathered, and urban soul has ventured into dating again.  Yes.  Yes.   I know.   Many, perhaps all, of of you are shocked . . . pulling your mouth off the floor.  Well, to make it even better let me tell you a little story about dating in the new millennium (to so brashly steal half a line from Rent ).  Oh yes, the rules are not the same . . . nor or they sane.   1. Ladies, I say this with a deep, ingrained passion.  Use a dating email.  When you meet a handsome chap. . . give them the damned dating email.  Coyly say, oh it goes to my phone and it won't show up in my message logs (and white lie if you need to on the next part) as my work pays for my phone.  Yes.  Do not give out the real email or the cell phone.  Why? With an email and/or cell phone you can find out a life history.  You think I jest? 100 bucks says I can find your address . . . why yes, that's called puttin' PhD skills to goo...