That’s how we bring up all children in our family: by ear.

October 19, 2009 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Deep South, Everyday, family, health, life 
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I like to think I'm a good uncle. Even though, I don't really know my "real" nieces and nephews. I've seen Millie, once; I've seen Auden, once; I've never meet Vinnie. So, to make up for this: I give all my grand uncle-ness to a series of young cousins, whose mothers I grew up with, as my nieces, being the baby of the adopted family I claimed with their grandmother, who I took as my--- You know what, let me scratch that. It's too confusing. My family tree, you know, is really just an assortment of random branches that were blown down during a storm, and happend to fall around...

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The end of the world is not an excuse to be tacky.

September 11, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: End of the World, Everyday, faith, family, food 
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Gosh. All this talk about 2012, and the end of the world, has made me both hungry and excited. That's a dangerous combination, coupled with the fact that Lil' Wayne, The Smashing Pumpkins, and Janeane Garofalo are listed on various 2012 websites as celebrity believers in this Doomsday Prophecy. I mean, please... That's enough right there to make me gorge myself to near death on a jar of warm mayonnaise. To be honest, I'm not sure where my depth of awe in the Apocalypse even comes from. I don't know why it intrigues me so much. I'm sure, like most everything else...

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The lure of the maraschino cherry, and other things I learned this weekend.

August 3, 2009 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Everyday 
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Here's what my weekend was like. (Besides, busy). Because busy needs a body. Friday started early, for me. I headed to Jackson to visit with my dear, sweet friend Lora. She's staying for a week at this resort and spa known as the University Medical Center.  It's all on account of her cancer diet (her joke, by the way). I stayed there for a good, long time, sharing stories with her about faith, the future, etc. She had quite a busy day: former students, new acquaintances (everyone knows and loves Lora), and pleasant doctors all stopping by to offer well-wishes, and to...

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I accidentally punched her in the face: Tacoma Tales, Part 2

July 29, 2009 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Everyday 
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I'm a big fan of water. And not just for drinking. I love to be near, on, and in it. Each year, a group of friends and I make a sojourn to the beach and do little else than sit on the sand until we crisp. All for the sake of that liquid salvation. Sometimes, it's enough to just hear those waves, you know. I wait all year for this one week (usually in May, because no one is on this particular beach in May) constantly envisioning the glare of the sun from the sugar sand, salivating for the long evenings, lounging in...

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I was able to order my fish sandwich without incident.

June 20, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
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I can no longer ignore the inevitable because Wednesday, June 24, is fast approaching. And that is the day in which I must board a plane. And fly to Memphis, in which, I will get off one plane and onto another one...and head to Tacoma. A city in a state so far away from here that it might as well not even be a part of the United States. Few other things make me as defensive or difficult as flying. Because I'm so afraid of it. Not just because I'm mean.  Flying is something that I can safely hate. I become neurotic, distraught, maybe even mean...I'm...

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Rasputin and the Fateful Finger Day

June 2, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
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I: Confession I don't have many great qualities, I'd imagine (for instance, I find it increasingly difficult to even get a date, so I'm tempted to say that I must be lacking some crucial quality - unfortunately, it's a temptation I never give into. I know better). What I do have, and consider a good thing to have, is a large, uncontrollably malleable heart. Even if it's quite a fault of mine to have it, a liability. It's still not the worst thing to have. Then, again, I'm also ignorant about a great many things, and most often, after the initial shock of owning so much pathos, I tend to...

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Good in the kitchen and with chicken snakes.

May 18, 2009 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Everyday 
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For twelve days I've been a vegetarian. Mostly. Erin said what I really am (she's an authentic, bona fide vegetarian) was a pescatarian. Which sounds similar to a Christian denomination. But, mainly, it means I am 90% real vegetarian, and 10% fake-out: I allow myself fish, eggs, dairy, etc.  I have a great need for smoked salmon, on occasion. I'm not trying to drag anyone along with me on this dietary sojourn (although twelve days is a little less than temporary), but as I cook all the meals in the house, Amanda might not have much of a choice. Well, except where the...

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The Dollar Bill Incentive, Or, Being Good For Nothing.

May 14, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Everyday 
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I was always an "A" student. I had a memory like an elephant. I never needed a curfew, and I went to church almost more than I went home. Yet, I was terribly, awkwardly naive. A bookworm straight out of the solid core of a ripe apple, I didn't read people as well as words, not until I was much older - and oh how I wish you could shut people up the way you do a book, one flick of  your wrist and back they go on the shelf.  But me, no, I never questioned authority, and let me tell you that came to backfire...

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