Category: Personal
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Foreground/Background
Another TIme Magazine feature in the same week, this time down the road from Kinsman to Youngstown, with my friends Deb Weaver (of Youngstown Moxie fame–see blogroll) and Jan Pentz speaking, as well as the mayor, a smart guy. A good portrait, once again, of people coming at this political dilemma from a variety of…
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Got Democracy?
Why vote? Because it’s one of the few opportunities you have to shape your own reality. That’s the only reason I need. But also? If you vote, you get a sticker. And at some polls, candy. I myself have already voted, and at my voting place I got BOTH a sticker and candy. Also a…
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Out of Kinsman
Youngstown has certainly got a lot of attention in the media during the past year of political candidates running around the country, trying to make their case for why they should be president. I’ve seen articles from the New York Times to Japan’s version of the Wall Street Journal, and television reports from French and…
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Officially done
After watching tonight’s debate, I am officially done with the political race. I don’t feel like I’m getting any more information from either candidate. At this point, I just hear the same catch phrases over and over. And I’m discouraged by their choices to continue limiting the form of the debates. First, McCain’s campaign negotiates…
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All that glitters…
What I would like to elucidate as the main difference between the vice-president selections from my last post is that Obama’s choice of running mate (a choice of someone he perceives will fill in gaps he himself may have as president, thus aiding him) is a decision made from wisdom and a genuine intention to…
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Where the Wild Things Are
Just a couple of weeks ago, when the semester started, I was taking roll in one of my classes, trying to get to know students’ names, and came across a young woman with the last name of Sendak. “Like the writer,” I said, to which she replied, “Huh?” “You know,” I said, “the writer, Maurice…
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Works in progress
It is muggy hot today here in Ytown, and I just spent hours and hours being oriented as new faculty to the university (new full time faculty, that is, I’d been teaching part time here for the past couple of years) and filling out form after form after form after…yes, form. Tomorrow is the English…
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On wanting to do better
A little while back I wrote an entry in this journal about not feeling very good about how things were proceeding in my third book, and about a kind of depression it’s induced for me over the past couple of months. I feel like I’ve spent much of this summer banging my head against my…
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Out of here
I was contacted recently to come up and teach at the Imagination Writing Conference at Cleveland State University again, this time as a replacement instructor, as the one they’d intended didn’t work out, so I’ll be away for the next week. Running around like crazy trying to do all the errands I thought I’d pace…