Why I Stopped Drinking

One summer, several years ago, I wrapped up an evening of art openings in my boyfriend’s neighbor’s loft, listening to beautiful Spanish poems recited. Everyone at this gathering was an artist of some sort, and conversation flowed around South American travel adventures, and paintings, and poets. I listened to their conversation begin to pool and […]

Playing God

I’m fond of the concept of “playing God” as presented in The Cider House Rules. It’s a novel with a good old-fashioned modernist directive: someone is going to play God, someone is going to wield terrifying power like a gun or a doctor’s kit, and maybe, since you’re a reasonable person, that person ought to be […]

The Balance of Power

Today I was asked to sub for a Shakespeare class. The kids were supposed to watch “10 Things I Hate About You,” which meant I could sit and do whatever the hell I wanted while they were entertained. That’s a good way to earn twenty bucks. I was happily checking my email and reading “Catcher […]

I Used To Feel So Uninspired

Barack Obama makes me feel like a natural woman. Especially this morning. I’ve been preaching for years that education funding should not be locally funded. If our goal in education is to equalize opportunity, it makes no sense to let poor kids in poor areas go to poorly funded schools and rich kids in rich […]