Things my Assistant Can Do
How many times a day do I think of things my assistant could do, if I had an assistant to do them? Many. Countless. Or no, they could be counted, but I would need an assistant to do so. Just lately, I’ve been wishing I…
Tag: books
Books to Go
Everybody knows moving is one of the most stressful life events. Only . . . it’s not true. The BBC debunked this stubborn myth two years ago, putting “moving into a new home” way down behind one hundred other stressors. Your response to this news…
Happily Ever After
Strickland Gillilan (1869-1954) wrote a terrific poem called “Reading Mother.” It starts off, “I had a mother who read to me Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea. Cutlasses clenched in their yellow teeth; Blackbirds stowed in the hold beneath.” Many of his references are…
Confessions of an English Major
I’ve got a confession to make. It’s really shameful and embarrassing. Here it is: Even though I have both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in English, I’ve never read Jane Eyre, nor anything else by the Bronte clan. Despite all those years of reading,…
How to Read a Book
If anybody knows how to read a book, it should be a librarian, right? You’d think I’d be an expert. I wish I had a dollar for every time somebody has walked into whichever library I’m working at and said, “Have you read all these…
After retiring from a column-writing gig lasting eleven years and yielding over 300 personal essays, I find I still have something to say. My thoughts range far and wide, and occasionally deep, on subjects including being an Iowan who misses Colorado; surviving marital violence; raising an amazing daughter and an equally amazing son; being justifiably angry about the world “these days;” writing poetry and plays; wondering if I’ll get Alzheimer’s like my mom and her two brothers; wanting to write about my twin granddaughters without sounding all Hallmark-y; fixing OCD-ish food; making sense of pants that come in shorts / crops / ankle-grazing / bootcut; being a librarian in public, academic, archival, and medical libraries; waiting 46 years to attend my high school reunion; having a gorgeous garden I can’t take care of; seeing a shaman; loving good men despite all the bad ones; and trying to wrest a little joy from life despite an 11-year-and-counting chronic migraine.