I call this one: Pack-N-Play and other Defeated Purposes

Weekend plan. (If you haven't read "Let The Great World Spin" get on it. One of my favorites and timely after this week's Wallenda feat!)

What I found waiting for me at my desk this morning. Gluten-free chocolate hazelnut cookies made by the always-thoughtful Jenn Sutherland. Love.

Right side of things

This has been an uproarious 48 hours, what with all of the voters’ rights legislations being gutted, fabulous Texan ladies filibustering and same-sex marriage banning, um, being declared unconstitutional. Keeping the rhythm there was a bit rough. Apologizes. I guess all I want to say is this: I look at this gorgeous face and the…

New moms owe us nothing

There are two times in life in which parents later regret a great deal many things: Most of the experiences they had in their younger days The first year after having their first child The common thread between the two, of course, is that both are littered with an exorbitant amount of hubris, the kind…

Is this thing on?

Eight posts since the calendar flipped over to 2013. This is probably the least I’ve ever written since I launched this blog in 1999, to say nothing of since I was able to craft a sentence and called it “writing.” There’s a multitude of reasons for that, none of which are particularly interesting or noteworthy,…

Gotta get it right this time

I’m pretty sure I get it now. I never once presumed or judged or questioned, you know, when moms wrote or talked about guilt and motherhood. It was just that I knew I hadn’t really experienced it yet. Now that AG is a toddler, now that my job has become more demanding, I am. Yesterday…

Happy 2nd Birthday, Abigail

Dear AG – YOU ARE TWO. Well, as of this writing, two and three days. As seems to be the case lately, I’m running a bit behind. I just spent the past twenty minutes, wasting perfectly good writing time as you sleep, looking at a collection of pictures I took throughout this year. Only one…

Countdown to NOLA

I’m at the point in half-marathon training where I would rather do just about anything than run. This is sort of the way with me anything, which is why I’m never terribly consistent about things such as half-marathons. I love them as a goal, as a thing to do, but the dedication required to make…

Crybaby

I wrote this piece for a wonderful reading series here in Chicago on behalf of CHIRP: Chicago Independent Radio Project and its First Series. I read this at The Beat Kitchen on Wednesday, and shared the stage with some amazing, funny, gifted and brilliant people.  It was an early spring afternoon in 2011, when my…

One is the loneliest number

One of the new-found joys of working from home on Fridays is now that Abigail is of an age where things such as music classes and play groups are available to her, I can spend my lunch hour going with her to them. I live in an area of Chicago where organized activities (read: pay-for-play,…

Thank you, Junot Diaz

“Okay, we didn’t work, and all memories to tell you the truth aren’t good. But sometimes there were good times. Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep beside me and never dreamed afraid. There should be stars for great wars like ours.” – Sandra Cisneros I am not sure I’ll ever be OK with…

Greetings and Salutations

I walked in the door last night to the same greeting I’ve received for nearly three months now: “Hiiiiiiii, MAMA!” Every night, it’s as though I’ve entered stage right of some game show set and there’s my toddler daughter, doing her best Bob Barker to welcome me to the episode already in progress. Her candor…