Fringe Elements

I’m not a Kennedy groupie. Before I started reading all these articles about Senator Ted and his accomplishments, I thought of him the same way I think of PETA: I agree with the agenda, but the reputation get my eyes rolling… why do they always have to look like such wackos? Then again, the extremists at PETA, while […]

March to April

In March, I went to the computer to subscribe to the New Yorker, and found out one of my students had been shot. He was dead. I was having another one of my seizures of certainty that I could not be an educated person, a writer, a worthwhile human being, without subscribing to the New […]

Worth Blushing For

Although I technically teach English and writing, every year I also end up teaching sex ed. Every year students ask me such terrifying questions as, “I heard this guy jerked off on his back porch, and then a girl in her backyard across the street with her legs open got pregnant. Is that true?” or “Why […]

Teachers and Undertakers

I was not invited to the economic meltdown. I went to work in a field with little prospect for financial advancement and infinite job security. (Teachers and undertakers remained solvent during the Great Depression. I’m the former.) Even worse: I didn’t invest. My only retirement savings has been through the state pension fund. I own my car, and […]