“We’ll just draw names again. Except for the babies.”

November 20, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Deep South, faith, family, food, humor, life 
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 I’ve never really cared about the gift exchange element to Christmas.  Time and time again, as a child, I’d be asked what I wanted and time and time again, I’d say I didn’t care. I’d be pressed until I crumbled and rattled off some random item. A typewriter (which I ended up loving), board games (which I’ve since donated to high school theatre departments), books (I still have every one of these), a video recorder (I used it once six years ago to document a living will). I’ve never really put that much focus on material things. Not to say that I...

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Am I merely a heathen, now? Is that what this heartburn is indicating?

August 24, 2009 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Everyday 
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I don't want to write this blog. I really don't. (Of course, I'm going to, but still...you should know that I don't really want to). I don't want to write it because it's going to force me to seriously consider the points I'm about to make, or attempt to. Points that are more than likely going to be offensive, both about myself and the culture I live in...and probably to one or two of you, at the least. I like God, let me just say that, upfront. I even like Jesus. I don't know when the last time was that I...

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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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Rasputin and the Fateful Finger Day

June 2, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Everyday 
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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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The monk on a yellow motorcycle.

May 21, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Everyday 
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Again, with the dreams. I'm having such dreams, lately.  A flood. Minus the ark. I think they're so vehement and vivid because I'm knuckles-down and knee-deep in rehearsals for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged]. We open next week, and I'm stressed, to be sure. But so long as I can get that stress out in my dreams, and not on the stage, perhaps, perchance, it will be all right. After all, the Bard said, There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Heaven help me indeed, if this is part of my philosophy. Earth, I...

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Persistence has no pesticide.

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It all started with the handmade oatmeal soap my sister-in-law gave me, in the guise of a present.  I must say, wrapped as it was in that beautiful red gift paper, it was quite a thoughtful-looking Christmas present. That’s the allure of wrapping paper, though, isn’t it? I learned this early on:  people will take anything on this earth if you just wrap it pretty enough.  It can be a thoughtless happy, a re-gift (as American as the NRA), a genuine present, anything. Many is the household item, kitchen utensil, family portrait, that I, as a child, took and re-wrapped and gave to Nana...

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