Many years ago in Rochester, the pastor of the UU church I belonged to gave a series of sermons on "Lessons Learned from Mountain Climbing."

I'll be honest - I don't remember most of that series.  But there is one that I've never forgotten, one statement that changed my outlook in the long term:

The goal is not the peak - it is the parking lot. ( Read more... )

I have multiple places where I am an online presence, sometimes under different names and for different purposes ( Read more... )

Come home, daughter.

The city that whispers its claim was never my home.  Or perhaps I should say, it hasn't been my home yet.I find excuses, make excuses, to come back - if not to the city itself, to something somewhere close by.  I've been doing it for years ( Read more... )

I wasn’t much of a sports fan during or just after college.  In fact, I had cultivated the geeky bookworm's well-practiced disdain for any and all team sports, though I would watch figure skating in the winter and follow swimming and track and field events (and sometimes gymnastics) during Summer Olympics years.  The most I could muster was token ( Read more... )

Thing you may not know about me: I startle easily. Ridiculously easily ( Read more... )

I am my parents' only child. I always wished I wasn't. It probably didn't help that both of my parents are very introverted and I'm...well, not ( Read more... )

Ah, the elusive "real job" - an occupation with many contradictory definitions ( Read more... )

My undergraduate career was coming to an end, not with a bang but a whimper. My GPA was less than impressive, I had failed one of the courses I needed to actually complete my second major, the one graduate school I had applied to had rejected me, and I really didn't know what I was going to do with myself after I left. There was a cheap shared ( Read more... )

I carry a scar in the palm of my hand - a small, raised divider that neatly bisects my life line ( Read more... )

This house goes on sale ev'ry Wednesday morning
And taken off the market in the afternoon.
You can buy a piece of it if you want to
It's been good to me if it's been good for you.Living "off-campus" was a big, exciting milestone. More exciting still, I would be living with one of my closest friends (and a few other people), while two of my other ( Read more... )