Dear Brother-in-Law visited my Dear Mother this week. He thought she looked great! “You look great!” he told her. “You’ve put on some weight!” Uh-oh. Dear Sister and I know better. We agree that DM does not want to hear that. No matter how tiny she is now, a lifetime of conditioning makes weight gain […]
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Nobody Wants This
I stayed on for a bit with my mom after Thanksgiving, helping with some things around the house. “Helping with some things around the house” is a sanitized version of what I was doing. This fall, my mother was the target of evil scammers who posed as people trying to protect her online identity and […]
Chimeras
At least once a decade, I try to put in an appearance at the Kornish family reunion. This was the year! On the trip this summer, we stopped at Dear Mother-in-Law’s home on the way to Middle of Nowhere, PA (reunion venue, and no, not the official name of the town). DMIL was a champion […]
Norms
Higher education is crawling with norms. Our students are awash in spoken and unspoken expectations for social, academic, and career success. In my post Crossed Wires, I wrote about the subset of them that needs to take their comparisons down a notch, the “CHILL OUT! group.” As professors, we have our spoken and unspoken norms, […]
Embrace the Suck
Enough time has passed that I can share this story. I just filled the last page of a journal and started a new one. As is my custom, I read through the complete journal before starting fresh with the new one. I had scribbled down snippets of so many forgettable dreams, mundane details of some […]
Peek-a-boo
The moon peeks at meFloral perfume in spring airSurprise and delight Peek-a-booHaikuFor you You?
Reasons
In a discussion with my class last semester, I shared with my students that I don’t believe that “everything happens for a reason.” I understand that many people DO believe it, but I do not. A student followed up with me: why? I took her question as an invitation to dissect that belief, or unbelief, […]
How Can I Write a Title for a Post When Words Cannot Do Justice to These Moments?
The blog has a new character! !!! Grandson 1 has arrived. Grandson 1’s parents (Son 1 and Dear Daughter-in-Law) do not want photos posted of him. I get it. I specifically recall the origin of this insistence. Son 1 was a teen. I showed him that when one wrote stuff online, people for years to […]
It’s a Sign (2024 Edition)
This is a beautiful ballad from the Eagles, released in 1975, “Take It to the Limit.” Listen here. All alone at the end of the evening And the bright lights have faded to blue I was thinking ’bout a woman Who might have loved me I never knew You know I’ve always been a dreamer […]
Chapter X, In Which LK Realizes She is Not The Little Match Girl
While we are in the troves of children’s literature, here’s a story about another tale that I reflect on. The key reason that my current work transition is so painful is my lifelong struggle with feeling like an outsider. There have been some moments in my life, most notably the college years, that I felt […]