We were on our way to Mankato to see Jason Isbell. Wolfdogg, Heather, Jaycie, and I were not really speeding down 169, but making our way. There was a lot of road construction. As we slowed down through every small town between my house and Mankato, I would sigh dreamily, “Oh, I want to live here.” Everyone in the car would quietly dismiss me and…
I’m ankle-deep in Tressie McMillan Cottom’s Thick: And Other Essays, which I am really enjoying despite what I’m going to say next. I AM SO ANNOYED. Or rather I’m annoyed by a handful of paragraphs in an essay about white beauty standards, body shame, and Miley Cyrus. In these paragraphs she’s talking about a high school experience and she repeatedly refers to one kid in…
“I am sad,” I say to Walter a few times a day. He always looks at me with his Arms of an Angel eyes, then I scratch his butt, and feel momentarily better. I keep announcing my sadness as a way to be woo-woo and sit with it, whatever that means. I am sad because a friend called me Thursday morning to say they had…
Last week I read 90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality by Allison Yarrow. I kind of loved it and hated it in equal measure. I’ve been thinking about it every day since I started reading it and am still pondering what I want to say about it, because BOY DO I HAVE THINGS TO SAY. However, I haven’t gotten my…
To be completely braggadocios, I don’t often have inedible food fails when I cook. To be fair, I do prepare and eat a lot of mediocre food. It happens, especially when you read six different recipes take what you like from each of them and then just guess how much a teaspoon of whatever is. For CSA Supperclub on Thursday I made French Onion soup….
Things went off the rails on Saturday afternoon after I got up from a not-entirely-restful nap. It was one of those naps where you wake up cranky and you just can’t shake it. That was what? Five days ago. I’ve been cranky ever since and it keeps getting progressively worse. I’ve wanted to blog all week and have only now made time for it. Tuesday…
I can never remember if it was this song my mom ruined or Phil Collins’ cover of “Groovy Kind of Love.” She ruined the song by knowing all the lyrics even though it was a totally hip new song and how on Earth could she know it? And would she stop already she was ruining it with her singing and being a mom and liking…
Last night I was gonna write about a song of the week, something I would have picked randomly because my brain hasn’t been singing so much since the news about Ryan Adams being an abusive dirtbag. It was probably gonna be Jeremy Messersmith’s “It’s Only Dancing,” because I listened to him a lot yesterday while I caught up on work I ignored during the week…
We all do it. Talking in whispers because to say it out loud might make it true. It’s kind of like a #MeToo version of a celebrity death pool. Who would really surprise you if they were outed as a misogynistic, abusive, sexually predatory dirtbag? I thought the revelations about and subsequent resignation of Al Franken threw me for a loop. Then news broke today…
I’ve said before that when I feel especially troubled instead of praying, I sing The Beatles’ “Let it Be.” Usually, I sing it to the Gastby Lights. I am a religion of one with really strange rituals. One of the other tenets of my religion is that John Cougar Mellencamp’s music comforts the weary of mind and spirit. That has been me this past week…
