Girl, the jig is up,” my best friend is telling me on the phone as I’m freaking out about my recent discovery that I am not, after all, a born fighter. “Your shit is totally exposed.”
Forever Loving Your Crazy Self
Dedicated to Jason Braman. Things I want to remember: Hissing “yesssss” at each other through the phone. Listening to “Arnold Layne” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” at full blast in your room with the strobe light flashing. Drawings created with ball-point pens and colored pencils ― your doodles. Hippie beads, scarves and that cape… (continue…)
My Wild Safari in Ohio
No. 1 in an occasional series titled “Never Been There, Never Done That,” in which the author reports on a brand-new adventure. The date had been on my calendar for at least a month. “May 28: Columbus trip.” I’d added it when my girlfriend and I were on our way to a movie at The… (continue…)
A Lame Attempt at Car-Free Living
The aptly named Rattletrap has sat idle on McPherson Street for two weeks now as part of my car-less adventure as I hoofed it around downtown ― and I have to admit my life has been pretty much unchanged. Well, except for the fact that the act of walking has been a serious struggle. See,… (continue…)
Hoofing It: One Girl’s Guide to Walking the Streets of Dayton
Things I remember seeing during my 20-minute commute: Tree limbs swirling in a rain-swollen Great Miami River. Aged buildings with elaborate cornices rubbing shoulders with their modern-day glass and steel counterparts. Phil staggering down the sidewalk asking for spare change to buy a muffin. Things I remember hearing during my 20-minute commute: The splash and… (continue…)
Notes on Parenthood
I’m downloading photos of a baby from Facebook to email my mom and dad when I begin to cry. I know why I’m weepy even though, to be honest, babies give me the heebie-jeebies with their tiny, fragile bodies and late-night cries. It’s because this baby is special. Already, even though we haven’t met, I… (continue…)
Middle East Turmoil: View from an American Girl in Cairo
“If I’m going to die, I wanna have my combat boots on!” It is March 1987, and I am standing in gym class with my fellow restless sophomores watching plumes of smoke twist through the sky just past the edges of the campus of our school, Cairo American College. Egyptian police recruits ― at that… (continue…)
Learning to Love Football
When I told my sister I wanted a Steelers T-shirt for Christmas this year, she thought I was kidding. Which makes sense. I used to tell people ― very truthfully ― that if sports ceased to exist, my life would be wholly unchanged. I barely knew a baseball from a basketball. In my world, “tight… (continue…)
A complicated love affair with Dayton – Then and Now
Dear Dayton, OK ― I admit it. You win. Not that I didn’t put up a valiant battle. I’ve fought with you most of my 40 years. Oh, the hours I spent dreaming about the day I would leave you! The images of myself ― happy, carefree ― in a place bursting with hipness and… (continue…)
