For the last year and a half, I have coached a slam poetry team. I was offered the job the same day I moved into my first apartment after marriage. This job was all I could manage while I finished up grad school. It was just a couple hours one afternoon a week and I... Continue Reading →
the admin of writing
The thing about writing is it isn't just sitting here when I feel creative and transforming my thoughts into words in a Word doc. If only it was just that. Also, there is this matter of publishing. Tom Williams said, "So long as our words remain private to us, they are incomplete and inert. Power... Continue Reading →
beating the badness
Holden, lately, has been so good. Translation: obedient rather than defiant. He has never been an easy kid. He talks back constantly, throws fits, refuses to participate in kid things, whines, tries to barter every time he's given a command. To say it's hard to parent him is a massive understatement. But something in him... Continue Reading →
heart-shaped eyes
At my son's elementary school, they cut sheets of tissue paper into pieces. Brandon, glad to have me in this part of his life we don't usually share, holds heart-patterned tissue paper over his eyes, looks at me like an emoji. I have brought an apple at Brandon's request and I pull it from my... Continue Reading →
arcade jackpot
Yesterday I took the boys to Dave & Buster's which in the past has not been my jam. The lights and sounds and kids screaming--I am overstimulated and tired at the thought. But a couple weeks ago we all went to an arcade together and it was fun to see them play games and try... Continue Reading →
stalling in ravines against snowbanks
January in Nebraska is like this: Between the cars, on the yellow painted lines in the parking lot, snow melted to slush and then froze into ice and there are slick stripes, perilous patches to avoid while loading and unloading your children from the car again and again. The windiest day of the week coincides... Continue Reading →
favorite books of 2018
2018 was my first year to pick my own reading materials for awhile and I found myself caught in the headlights, unsure of where to start. So, of course, I took recommendations from my writer friends and perused the library and googled top picks within genres and ended up liking these ones best: 1. Fun... Continue Reading →
2018 in review
We celebrated little things. We read books. We went on adventures. In March, that meant on an airplane. We ate junk. Exhausted, we slept. We played. And partied. I traveled to Tampa and LA and Washington and Oregon and Colorado and Cancun. I walked or ran in all of those places, sometimes stopping to take pictures.... Continue Reading →
servers are not servants
I waitress on the weekends, like I've done before, many moons ago and then again not so many moons ago. I keep coming back to serving because it is fast cash and I am good at this job of taking orders and refilling drinks and running food and making small talk for an hour with... Continue Reading →
