people are hard for me

Other people can be really hard for me. I often seem outgoing, loud, engaging, humorous, charismatic, when I’m not moody, overly introspective, prickly, and self-involved. I am an only child who told her deepest secrets to a stuffed bear, that I still have; but now he sits on a shelf so that I don’t tear…

eulogy for “losing your virginity”

Colloquial sayings have a role in cultures and communities, often acting as a short-hand for a common experience. It is one area where the meaning of words evolves faster than any academic or lexicographer can measure. People often complain at first at the hassle of changing a commonly used term but eventually through the powers…

East African frostbite

On some national public radio, feel good story about the immigrant experience and programs that help newly arrived immigrants cope with the freezing Minnesota winters, they talked with one of the teachers, an East African man who had arrived 15 years prior. He talked on the point of how impossible it is to imagine finger…

To know is not to know

My mind can make anything real, happily substituting reading Workout magazine and processing it as an actual physical experience. The dysfunction of an intellect is that it seeks to understand reality via an understanding, not experience, not tangible evidence, rather simply having thought it through ought to suffice. I always offer the advice to my…