I make the effort to regularly write to my respective legislatures of House and Senate here in Michigan, as a fairly simple way to flex my responsibilities of citizenship in between election cycles. I maintain a gracious tone as a general rule, as my hope is to actually achieve some small measure of notice or…
Tag: thrift shopping
All that hard work for what?? It could be beneficial to embrace futility as an exercise in humility.
Now that I’m really coming into my own as a person likely destined to never not ever procure actual employment of the grownup, stable, benefits -included variety, I’m dutifully exploring the wideworld of options within pay rates ranging from zero to a lil bit. Still, despite my openness to the continuation of my personal, lifelong…
There is no good plan for this country, aside from that which arises out of unity.
My mind seizes upon finding solutions, to even the thorniest of problems. In that spirit, I’ve been trying to envision a path toward unification as our country descends into a maelstrom of divisiveness. It is a tall order, but as is true of essentially all the most vexing problems of modernity, we technically possess everything…
Our safety depends upon meeting the hottest of messes with the utmost of cool.
A few days back, I attended a community meeting discussing the options for protesting and responding to a visit by a white supremacist icon to Michigan State University. Having long counted Gandhi and MLK as heroes, I spoke of the need to adhere to nonviolent means. These remarks sparked quite a bit of healthy debate,…
Recalibrating mood is much like choosing to be merciful.
Since my sadfest yesterday, I realized that I could spy a bit on some of my job applications, and so learned that they are still in review. Though January, the prime time for academic interviews, careens to a close, I shall be honest in acknowledging that it isn’t yet official that I haven’t been selected…
therapy
After a difficult few hours of rouge, ranging, generalized imprisonment in a grief-struck realm, the floating dread verging on panic that can so readily descend upon the psyche in 2017 found some relief by grace of small talk with elders. A frequent occurrence. So I wrote a poem: Store Late in the morning yesterday,…
hope happens
Surge Just as amazed and astounded near incredulous over the fact of the groaning earth yet managing enabling each breathing moment of we masses of people, so each heart surged tear we shed over joys and pains in existence a small victory miracle unexpected proof of empathic ability. The wires and wars have yet to…
rights
Among the array of thoughts inducing anxiety that would escalate into a panic attack save a combined effort of will and the practicalities of daily living, one of the most wrenching is the escalating loss of entire species of animals from the planet. Even writing that, my chest clenches and my heart and throat swell,…
Patriotism
For a person interested in gaining a measure of the wisdom in the world, it seems a natural thing to start with a close reckoning of familiar details and people. This tendency to contemplate the familiar in part explains the attention I paid as a scholar to Native and African-American experiences in the Early American…
Penning
Though expedience and the habituated norm typically ensure my use of this cruddy, cracked smartphone faux keyboard for a significant portion of my writing, I am also a devotee of notebook writing. Because I tend to require considerable amounts of the handwritten from my students, I decided to address the use of pen and paper…
Insight/Outfit of the Day 