Fits and Starts

The first 15% of a creative project, any project, is exhilarating. The next 65% can be solidly satisfying. The final 20%...sucks. With knitting, I call it the "This Damn Sweater Stage," when I stop knitting to measure the piece over and over again, as if remeasuring will magically make the infernal thing as long as it needs to be.

This should be a year for finishing things, including the dozens of incomplete knitting projects carefully packed in plastic boxes and at least some part of the three unfinished novels and four short stories that are carefully saved in folders and backed up in the cloud.

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Open Letter to Shenendehowa Schools

Dr. Oliver Robinson, Superintendent of Shen
Mr. Donald Flynt, Principal of Shen High School
Mr. Jonathan Burns, Principal of Acadia Middle School
Mr. Greg Pace, Principal of Tesago Elementary School

In the wake of the election of a US President whose campaign was an outpouring of racism, sexism, bigotry, and xenophobia and a VP who believes that LGBTQ people are in need of "curing," I feel it is urgently important that I write to you about incidents at Acadia Middle School and High School West.

On Thursday, November 10, a number of children were chanting, "Build a wall! Kill 'em all! All hail Trump!"

Of course Shen students have a right and even a responsibility to start exploring political ideologies, learning about our elections, and choosing candidates to support, but in a free, democratic society, "kill 'em all" is never acceptable. It is hate speech, pure and simple. It is an affront to civil discourse, it violates Shen district rules, and it…
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Too Old for Rock and Roll?

Now that my kids are teens, or nearly so, we suddenly have an interest in going to rock concerts. Yay!

Unfortunately, I'm feeling horrible sticker shock. Despite Pearl Jam's best efforts in the 90s, ticket costs have gotten even more crazy than they were "back in MY day."  *grumble grumble grumble*

To whit, I bought tickets to Green Day for this summer, and in addition to the five hour drive to the middle of fucking nowhere plus the overnight stay that necessitates, I paid $89.95 per ticket plus a $19 PER TICKET "service fee." Dude, my bank prefers it when I use computers to do my transactions! So why am I being charged 20% more for buying online???

Wondering if I'm just that old, I used the math we've been doing in Antonio's algebra class to check whether the price increase is a natural result of inflation. I remember paying $30 for the ticket plus $7 in "service fees" for seeing Pearl Jam in 2000 or 2001. If I remember the price corr…
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You Look Nice. I'm Sorry I Said So.

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One of the problems with people today (yes, feel free to groan) is our collective refusal to take context into account in our seemingly irresistible desire to feel offended. To whit:

People got mad at President Cheeto this week because he "complimented" the first lady of France for not being fat, saying, "You're in such good shape...beautiful."
The Reebok meme is amusing, and I love corporations standing up and trolling Trump, but DUDE! The "compliment" was skeevy because TRUMP is skeevy, not because there is NEVER a context in which is acceptable to compliment a woman (or man) on physical fitness. It would depend on who said it, how, in what context, what else was said, the expression on the complimenter's face, his or her body language. I can remember (and at this point it is quite distant) being in the gym and being quite pleased that a guy whose ass I had just kicked "racing" on the treadmill next to me said I was in great shape. I f…
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