Pertinent to my Interests

Documentary reviews, body neutrality, parenting, Jupiter, piano, cats, European history, ghosts, rodents, the collapse of civilization, and if this goes on long enough I'll probably end up cataloguing my entire smushed penny collection.

Category: Uncategorized

  • Summer Solstice

    I really prefer the dark and quiet of the winter solstice, but I’m told we can’t have year-round winter so here we are. The sun is like a toddler going through some terrible sleep regression. Still up at 9 PM. Up again at 5:30 AM. The whole family suffers. The winter solstice always seems like

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  • Summer Sleep

    It’s the last day of school here, exactly a week until the longest day of the year, and my ability to sleep soundly has vanished. Summer sleep is the worst. Too much heat, too much sun. The kids understandably struggle to go to bed when the sun is still up. The thin quilt on our

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  • I’ll smile when you’re gone.

    I just got hassled by a panhandler on my way into Target. He called me beautiful and then told me I needed to smile more to make more friends, all while shaking his cup of coins at me. Do you know how many times I have been told by strange men that I need to

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  • A Sense of History

    Yesterday I volunteered to help clean and organize a closet at my kids’ school. This is exactly the sort of volunteer gig I like; I would much rather sort through piles of toner cartridges than have anything to do with the carnival. Shoved in a low corner was small box labeled “archives.” I was surprised

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  • Documentary Review/ Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie

    New and different enough to fascinate me even though I’m pretty neutral on Michael J. Fox. I was in eighth grade and my family was going through our big People Magazine phase when Michael J. Fox went public with his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis, so I was already familiar with his story. Twenty-five years of disease

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  • Eat Your Breakfast

    I went to the gym this morning intending to pound out thirty intense minutes on the stair stepper. Instead I came off the machine feeling weak and tired at the twenty minute mark. I forgot to eat breakfast. Well, I didn’t forget (I’m not the type of person who forgets to eat), but I often

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  • The Red Disk

    In the summer of 1994 I was ten years old and living in a small town in Eastern Washington. We had a babysitter that summer and her car had a small hole in the floor, just big enough so you could see the street moving under your feet. My sister and I always fought over

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  • Documentary Review/ P!nk: All I Know So Far

    I usually enjoy a good behind-the-scenes tour of a celebrity’s life, but this one just stressed me out. This documentary follows Pink and her family during the European leg of her tour. Pink has chosen to bring her husband, her two-year-old son, and eight-year-old daughter with her and they are together all the time. When

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  • Roller Skating

    My kids’ school hosts a roller skating program in gym class for grades 1-5 for three weeks every spring. It’s a much-anticipated annual activity. Except it hasn’t been an annual activity recently, or at least not for us. School shut down due to covid-19 in early March 2020 when my oldest was in first grade.

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  • WKC

    I attended the Westminster Kennel Club show once. This was back when I lived in New York City and the show was held on weekdays in February at Madison Square Garden. I took a day off work and spent a lovely series of hours immersed in dog show culture. My favorite part was wandering around

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