Smashing

Getting onto the turnpike, I thought how the poking out of a ticket from the machine was already ready for pandemic. As I drove, the clouds were gargantuan and baroque, puffs and flourishes and light and shadow. In New York, I gazed at the beautiful buildings. Here, I gaze at clouds. Or stars. We have […]

Forget It

What I know now: people close to me, and people who are friends of friends, know that returning to in-person school would endanger my life. And my mother’s life. And my cousin’s life. And all my other teacher friends. And they don’t care. I don’t know how to live with this knowledge. I say I’m […]

Messages

I watched “Hamilton” on the 4th. It cracked my heart. I roasted some potatoes (a daring move for me) and mixed up some fruit juice n o one would want to drink, but I was bringing it anyway. I drove east, from Lawrence to Olathe. The clouds were as dramatic as opera. I glimpsed a […]

Dominoes

Trevor Noah has a great video on this. which inspired me to organize my thoughts a little. I often thought, and said, that we should have a strong social safety net because, all ethics aside, when economic structures are top-heavy, societies turn into enclaves of a very few rich people behind barbed wire, and everyone […]