Requiem

Barkley Andronovich was a difficult dog. I gave him the Andronovich when I was reading a Russian novel. Not War and Peace. (Hey, when you’ve read War and Peace you’ll work it into conversation, too.) Probably Anna Karenina. Russian novels are so comfortable to read, and the people are so itchy. Barkley was itchy. We’ve […]

The Best Lessons I Learned In School

1. “Necessary but not sufficient condition.” Geometry, 1992. Math is generally taught as if it is a tango, not a time to get down. Tango is too rigid for me. I never got to get down in math class the way I could when I was writing a paper. “Necessary but not sufficient” was one […]

The Humanity

I didn’t say this because I wasn’t sure I should. I’m a teacher, and I’m also a human being. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe. First I don’t sleep in my classroom… then this. People from the National Writing Project don’t ask me to be ashamed of spending time writing. They softened my […]

Role Models

Patti Smith wanted to be Rimbaud. In “Just Kids,” she describes her pilgrimage to the Rimbaud museum in France. And her attempts to dress like him. I wanted to be Madeleine L’Engle. And Man Ray. I am a little L’Engle: Episcopalian (partly her influence, but T.S. Eliot helped), frequenter of Broadway plays, introvert, demurely and […]