Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

As any honest jet-setter will tell you, not every locale is splendid and storybook exciting.   Sometimes a stop along the way is just that . . . a stop, a meander, a moment.   Last spring I spent about a week in Romania.   I was there for a professional conference, but as with how these things go I also squeezed in some moderate sights along the way . . . as most travelers do.   Yet, this petite country on the edges of the once Communist impressed Eastern Europe and on the fringes of the old Ottoman Empire and nestled at the base of the Balkans served more as a conversation piece.   Unlike Rome—during the 2012 Christmas season with marzipan delights toppling counters and market stalls and Vatican City abuzz with clergy seemingly dancing in the unusual snowfall of the festive air, Romania was more of a cup of tea on a porch swing and not a debutant’s ball. I arrived in Bucharest, on a spring evening, and after the airport and hotel drop I wandere...

Even though I spend much of my life teaching and tutoring various forms of history, I still find the notion of knitting as resistance fascinating. Back in the '90s, in angstful high school days, I first learned of knitters and codes during the French Revolution. It was while reading A Tale of Two Cities for English that the portal of knowledge came to life. The tid bit has stuck with me, and the modern pins and symbols one wears for cultural resistance have manifested on me. Somewhere, in the back of a jewelry drawer, are the remnants of DIY Riot Grrrl feminism of the 1990s. Rusted with age, forgotten from wear, pins denouncing the patriarchy, demanding power for the people, and declaring women's rights... trinkets of a life's work, a long held passion, and the thrust and drive of much of my life's work reside in the images and memories of those tchotchkes.   And, then in an assaulting shock of night I--with the world--found myself awoken to a new world order. An ...

When 2016 started I began the year staring at the television, sitting alone on my parents couch, as my Dad slept in the back and the dog was with him.   That day we had checked my mother into a nursing home.  At that moment, I remember thinking if this is a sign for the coming year . . . Yeah. 2016. Here's your fucking match.  Celebrity deaths aside, it's like this year had it out for the world, with a vengeance and flare. That being said, there are many reasons that the departure of this year is a blessing, and by and large I really don't have it in me to rehash every horror filled moment of the 2016 realm of Dante's hell . . . 2016 being the layer he never wrote about.  For two weeks I've been trying to figure out what I would write to close this year . . . I've sewed some, made bras and jeans and a couple silk blouses, I've travelled, I've taught, I've collapsed under it all, I've lost myself, I've lost my faith in resilience . . ...

As I sit here in the wake of another 80 hour work week--which is also attributing to my disdain as of late--and not having had a genuine day off in more than three months I battle writer's block and securities of social design.  Alone again . . . a tisket, a tasket that matters far more than it should, as most days I'm not home long enough to fully sleep to shake off the exhaustion.  Instead, between fits of sleeping and hustles to side streets and subways the snow begins to fall and the the air has chilled low enough to allow the truly ingenious--or cheap--to chill beer and other consumables in the open, frigid air.  I haven't resorted to that--as of yet--as my ginger beer is still in my refrigerator and every morsel of consumable food is packed and stored so that the city's real undesirables--roaches and fucking mice--can't make their way into it. Yet, on those subways from western Queens, to eastern Queens, to the Queens/Brooklyn border, to east Brooklyn, to ea...

“Mom.” “Yeah?” “I’m pregnant.”  Tho s e  final four words from Rory Gilmore  have now  erupted  shock waves across the internet, phone lines, and social gatherings.  I, like a large score of others who loved the  Gilmore Girls  show for years, am no exception.  I gasped, I laughed, and I logically saw it as an opening for another revival.  But, as I sat on my bed,  my  knitting falling from my hands, staring solo at my television I couldn’t help but feel a strange mix of nostalgia, anger, let down, and longing wave over me.   For months now I’ve been working on various feminism projects, and in the midst of that I’ve found myself re - watching  Gilmore Girls  as the show has always been my feel-good, go-to, comfort food of no calories.  That combo is hard to find, and about four years ago when Netflix released the entire series I was one of those  mid  thirty-year olds who spent the better p...