Dancing Machine

In a turn that surprised even me, dancing saved my life. This phenomena called “status migrainous” means you have migraine symptoms until you go insane. More than three days. My symptoms come and go, but my brain won’t right itself. My life isn’t in danger, really, it just feels that way. I went home for […]

Confessions

Sometimes I know where they work by their clothes– the shirt with embroidered words, the scrubs. I fall in love with about three-quarters of them. They are so eager to prove that they love their children, although no such proof is required. They are eager to prove to me that they care about education, that […]

Failure

If we’re too enlightened to beat up on the minority group of the hour, at least we have our school system to beat up on. I hear the phrase “failing schools” at least once a week, and last night Oprah went on a Godzilla-hits-Tokyo style hike through educational controversies. I watched skeptically, and barked at […]

Butterfly

Without gooey, wet music, nonfiction can get dry and flaky. Its author may also become too fact-heavy, which feels sort of like having eaten too much white rice. Tonight I read a survival strategy of a favorite writer: listen to opera when you write nonfiction. Makes sense. They’re cranking out the same goddamn “La Boheme,” […]