As my income has risen and my living space expanded, buying more books than I can ever hope to read has grown from habit to addiction. I disagree with people who’d argue that it’s only appropriate to buy as many books as you’re planning to read; that’s akin to buying enough food for dinner and expecting your morning self to just figure something out. Morning selves should never be left to fend, and neither should morning minds.

So I keep my mental pantry heftily stocked. One woman’s hoarding is another woman’s intellectual smorgasbord.

But when I’m hungry for something new to know, there’s immeasurable comfort to be found in perusing my own unread bookshelves, Continue reading “Unpredictable Customer” →

Last night I spent six of my dwindling summer hours watching the first half of “13 Reason Why,” the cult Netflix series about a teenager named Hannah who kills herself and then sends a stack of cassette tapes (because she’s, in her words, “old school”) to the kids who were in some way responsible for her suicide.

I hope she also had a set delivered to her own grave. Continue reading “One Rant Why” →

Church wasn’t a major element in my young life; both of my parents, recovering from Catholic upbringings, were lax in my siblings’ and my religious education. This allowed me to grow up with a curiosity and affection toward my spirit and its position in the universe, rather than the humiliation or confusion that a more strict religious childhood might have projected onto that relationship.

My mother did bring me to church with her, but it was a Unitarian congregation where most members were more interested in political and social activism than spreading the Good News, and although I attended Sunday school, the classes were focused on researching different world religions, volunteering within the community, and openly discussing our earnest and naive explorations of Continue reading “On Being Empty” →

The hardest part of being a person is grappling with the constant disappointment. Yeah, it’s pessimistic, but you know what “they” say: if you’re not pessimistic, you’re not paying attention. Or you’re amped up on probiotics. Or both – who knows? Who cares? With all this disappointment whirling around, it’s hard to know what to care about or care what you know about.

I feel like it all boils down to one stupid syllogism, a term aptly named because any one thing that can be used to describe everything is either too simple or too vague to possibly be taken seriously. But the heretofore irregardless logically reasoned facts can more or less be summarized as:

Everything is disappointing sometimes

AND Continue reading “Casual Wednesday Nihilism” →

I know that I’m good at writing, but I also know that being good at writing doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve always got something worth writing about. But Anne Lamott says writing is like playing tennis, meaning that sometimes you just go do it and don’t worry about doing it well but still do it because it feels good and also you’re Anne Lamott and grew up in Marin, CA surrounded by insanely liberal, insanely wealthy, insanely creative insane people in the sixties.

Because who else plays tennis and enjoys it?

(For the record, I really respect Anne Lamott and enjoy her work. But she’s kind of a self-righteous asshole.)

Speaking of assholes, Kurt Vonnegut Continue reading “Book by Book” →