TRIGGER WARNING: Physical and sexual abuse, themes of dominance and control It’s been two months since my mother died. Almost two months since I drove to Iowa and stood at her graveside in a small cemetery on a hill overlooking empty winter fields, listening to a kindly rented pastor eulogize my mother’s life, mispronounce her […]
New life in stillness.
It’s finally spring. I’m finally cleaning. My house, much like most of my life, has been in an upheaval and it has taking this long for me to give a damn and do something about it. I am not kidding when I say there’s no place where I haven’t let things go. My books. My […]
The perfect storm.
Last year was, in many ways, a transformational year for me. It was the first year after more than two decades of active parenting where there were no more kids in the house to tend to and care for. It was the year TheCop and I really had to examine where we were, and decide where to go […]
Daring to fail.
I hate rejection. I hate not living up to expectations. I hate failure. If left up to my fight or flight response, I’d run every time. I will also avoid doing something I really want to do if it means I must do something horribly uncomfortable in order to get there. I may not avoid it completely, […]
Cult of personality.
I went out several weeks ago with a friend to attend a goodbye gathering for a someone we know who’s moving out of state. Other than the guest of honor and my partner in crime, I really didn’t know anyone, so I cozied up to my glass of pinot noir and watched the people mingle. […]
Conflicted.
I have a confession. I’m not the touchy feely kind of parent (shocking, I know). Long ago I learned that, in order to be a better mother, I had to go back to work so I could actually see that I was making some sort of forward progress on a daily basis (let’s face it […]
Gaming the system.
Gaming. It’s a dog-eat-dog world and, let’s face it, it seems squarely skewed to the guy realm. There’s a lot out there about how gaming is a male dominated playground and, while female gamers are on the rise, they’re not particularly welcome, either. Now, I’m not a gamer, but the occasional subversive gender swap makes […]
Letting go.
It’s raining today. It’s gray and dull and dreary out, and I’d like nothing more than to crawl back into bed and pull my down comforter up to my chin. I think about where I am in my life, and the highly circuitous path it’s taken to get me here. Never in a million years […]
An invocation for beginnings.
This put a shudder through me, and swept away some doubts I’ve been struggling with. Thank you, Ze Frank, for stepping up the game. This says everything I’ve wanted to say but didn’t know how. Everything I wanted to start but didn’t know how. I hope you feel an impact from this. I hope you […]
Finding your strengths.
One of my coworkers went to a leadership conference a couple of weeks ago, where they participated in a number of exercises to discover what their personal strengths are and how they can leverage those strengths in the workplace. It was such a positive…
Plus one.
After months of rumors, yesterday Google launched their Google+ project. Project, mind you. Not product. We’ll talk about that later. But for most of the day my Twitter feed was on fire with complaints of not having access to Google+ (we geeks are a wh…
