Obsolete

I just saw a funny meme on Facebook about a mom teaching her kids to put gas in the car. After the lesson, one kid says, “thanks, but I’m not going to be driving a gas car” and the other kid says, “it’s like that time you taught us how to use a pay phone.” … Continue reading Obsolete →

#18 – october 21: lingering covid

I’m wrapping up my covid chronicles with this18th and final installment. Maybe I’ll revisit the topic later, when these pandemic times truly feel behind us. But right now, almost three years in, covid is still here and people are still dying everyday. Most of the world, however, is getting on with it, the booster shots … Continue reading #18 – october 21: lingering covid →

Gardening lessons

I think it was anthropologist Mary Douglas who wrote, “dirt is matter out of place.” Such a pithy way of explaining the importance of cultural context in defining the boundaries between the pure and impure, the clean and unclean, and the ways whole societies organize themselves around those definitions. This is what came to mind … Continue reading Gardening lessons →

Family movie journal

A few years before we had kids, when my husband and I had a lot more time to watch movies, I started a movie journal to keep track of what we’d watched and rate them on a 5-star scale. For each movie, I’d jot down the title, whether we’d seen it in the theater, on … Continue reading Family movie journal →

#17 – february 8: the tyranny of normal

2019. I look back at photos from that time with a bit of wonder. My 50th birthday celebration at a Chicago restaurant with friends who’d traveled from other cities. Our spring break trip to Korea with my mother. The kids’ birthday parties at one venue or another. Our then-6th grader’s first middle school dance. One … Continue reading #17 – february 8: the tyranny of normal →

The myth of white innocence

The system is working as it was designed. What does that mean? As far as I can tell, it means the system is designed to protect the myth of white innocence at all costs. The finger is ever pointed outward, never inward. There is always an other to blame who somehow forced white men’s hands. … Continue reading The myth of white innocence →

A communal miscarriage

After many discouraging years on the academic job market, waiting for our lives to settle into stability, my husband and I agreed we couldn’t wait too much longer and we started trying for a baby. We were living in New Jersey at the time, close to my family and many of our friends. That year, … Continue reading A communal miscarriage →

#16 – september 18: are we “post”?

Clearly not. There was a moment this summer, sometime in June or July when the vaccine became available for kids 12 and over, when there seemed to be a collective unclenching, a sigh of relief as we returned to some limited gatherings indoors and looked forward to a much better school year. People traveled and … Continue reading #16 – september 18: are we “post”? →

#13 — february 14: J. Hillis Miller, a remembrance

I found out from a Facebook post that famed literary critic J. Hillis Miller had died of Covid on Feb. 7 at age 92. Professor Miller was my dissertation advisor at UC Irvine, where I was in graduate school for most of the ‘90’s. By the time I’d enrolled in his seminar, he’d been a … Continue reading #13 — february 14: J. Hillis Miller, a remembrance →

#12 – december 31: ending the year in a pandemic

Every year I put together a family photo calendar with photos from the previous year arranged in chronological order month by month. 2021’s January page features pictures of us at the Chicago Botanic Garden Lightscape show and February features my younger son’s birthday party at a trampoline place that I doubt is still in business. … Continue reading #12 – december 31: ending the year in a pandemic →