It’s not a regret, it’s an “experience” Articles

Sometimes boring is good

It's Friday, and THANK GOD it's Friday, because it means I can direct you elsewhere. And some Fridays I think, "This is kind of a cop-out, writing about what I ate this week or how much I hate my elliptical or how many closets I've cleaned, because nobody cares about that," but this Friday is different. This Friday, the alternative to directing you to my scintillating Five Full Plates post about switching to cloth napkins and such is to relive the horror of Monkey's retelling of the "you and your body" talks they've been having at school this week, or to share the "anti-drug education"...

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Love is where you see it

I have a young friend who's going through a difficult time, right now. And so I counseled her---feeling impossibly old and insensitive and Terribly "Adult Who Doesn't Get It"---to try finding one thing every day that makes her happy, for a week, and to focus on that. "It will help," I told her, knowing that she was probably rolling her eyes (internally if not externally) and thinking about how I just don't understand. The thing is, I totally DO understand. I mean, it may have been a long time since my first heartbreak, but hello, here is my six-year-long shrine to Things I Obsess Over...

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I am not a southern lady

Three years after moving to Georgia, I am still learning the lingo. I am still learning that there is a segment of the population here that is always going to believe that 1) I talk too fast and 2) I am blunt to the point of rudeness. Me, I don't think I speak particularly fast, nor do I think of myself as rude (though I'll agree with blunt), but this is a dixie/yankee thing, I guess. One of the things I've learned since moving here is that it's "polite" to let other people be wrong and/or assholes rather than to stand your ground. That goes over with my personal stance on life (give me...

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My math comes up short

If you know anything about me, you know that I am frugal. It's sort of a calling, really, in that I am incapable of just spending money without thinking about it. I must get the best deal. The most value for my dollar! It must all be LOGICAL and allow me to say BUT LOOK HOW MUCH I SAVED. There are certain areas of life where the opportunity to save a few pennies is either very complicated or non-existent. Groceries, for example---I was just chatting with someone this morning about how that whole "hardcore couponing" thing really only works if you're buying stuff that for the most part isn't...

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1,000 words about my closet

Today is Friday, and that means I have the luxury of directing you elsewhere, which is good because otherwise I would have to tell you about the letter I got in the mail yesterday. That letter included a handy chart that had drawings and statistics and the body of it said: Dear parents of Chickadee Lastname, Your child participated in our school scoliosis screening program and ZOMG! How have you never noticed that her spine is bent? SHE FLUNKED! TOTAL FLUNKAGE! TAKE HER TO YOUR DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY! And because we totally don't trust you to have the crap scared out of you by this letter, you...

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15 things I love, just because

It's Love Thursday, and lately I've felt like Thursday leaves me anxious about finding JUST THE RIGHT THING that is, you know, PROFOUND ENOUGH to pass muster. Which is silly, of course, both because if profundity is the measuring stick by which I'm going to take stock of my work, um, ACK, and also because that's the thing about love---it doesn't have to be profound. Sometimes it just is. Sometimes it's everyday, plain, and perfectly simple. So rather than a long story or Yet Another Picture Of My Dog (okay, some of you tend to enjoy that, but it does kind of feel like cheating, sometimes,...

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How do they know?

Early Dismissal (school definition): The three days in a row set aside for parent-teacher conferences when school lets out after just half a day. This process is designed to facilitate greater teacher-parent interfacing and to accommodate everyone's scheduling needs. Early Dismissal (reality definition): The three days in a row set aside for parent-teacher conferences when school lets out after just half a day. This process is designed to fall on the busiest three days of my life, such that I not only fall behind on all of my regular work, but so that having the kids home and having eleventy...

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Picking battles, one by one

Like most parents I know, I was an infinitely better mother before I actually had children. I was a career babysitter as a teen, and a nanny as a young adult. If there was one thing I KNEW, it was how to handle kids. So naturally I was going to be completely awesome at it and never have any issues with my own children. Ahahahahahahaahaaaaaaaaaaaa. Yeah. Parenting, first, a sharp and cranky clone of myself, and then second, an overly-sensitive yet completely rigid and filterless little ball of energy has certainly disabused me of any delusions of my superior child-rearing abilities. A dozen...

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Wild and crazyish

This past week was Spring Break, here in the land of Start School Halfway Through The Summer And Then Finish When Everyone Else Still Has A Month To Go, and that of course meant that the kids went off to visit their dad while Otto and I spent the week in Bacchanalian revelry and various states of undress. That's a total lie, of course. The closest we got to a bacchanal was a little wine-and-cheese gathering we had for some colleagues, wherein I tried my hand at a baked Brie thing with candied walnuts and we all ended up face-down in the cheese plate. (Also: When the kids called the next...

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Things I Might Once Have Said

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