I bought a shredder. A Staples-brand shredder, by the way, and it died after a few uses. I swapped it for a different model, which has been in (very infrequent) operation for several months, and doesn’t spit out the paper it chews up very well, so you must frequenty pull the debris from the bottom of the shredder to keep Read More

I’m bad at poetry. I bought Lissa Schneckenburger’s CD of the same name and began playing it frequently. One of the songs, “The Irish Girl,” has the chorus Let the wind blow high and low my boys let the seas run mountains high It is the seamen’s duty the helm to stand by After a month or two–maybe three–I realized Read More

O Father! Darkness all around Unrevealing night, And a tumult of orange fire A mother holds her children. This too will pass—but when? The man on a white horse Rides into the night. He must go first. Will he return? How long? O Father! The chariots of Israel And their horsemen! 11/1/2007

“ Make the heart of this people dull, And their ears heavy, And shut their eyes; Lest they see with their eyes, And hear with their ears, And understand with their heart, And return and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:10) Somehow Tanta’s death seems like a seal of doom. Not that the economy was not already collapsing, nor that Tanta could Read More