My friend Wayne Turner died this week. I saw him on the day he died; he was chipper and friendly, the soul of kindness. In fact, I saw him in church and he was specifically called out from the pulpit for being a stalwart force for good in our lives. Yes, that's right, his minister commended him for his goodness in front of his friends on the day he ( Read more... )

Here's a journal entry I made after talking to a Trump supporter last March.

He died at the age of 58 this summer. He literally didn't survive the Obama administration.

Listen to his voice: this is a Trump voter.

http://gwendally.livejournal.com/975272.html

There's a parade in my small town on the last day of the county fair. It used to be called the fireman's parade but nowadays I think it's been renamed to the First Responder's Parade. All the surrounding towns send their fire trucks and ambulances to the county seat and they parade down Main Street and up the hill to the County Fairgrounds, where ( Read more... )

I blew off an appointment in May because I wasn't ready. I meant to reschedule it in June, and then my kid's accident happened and I didn't. It's been on my "to do" list that I never get through all through for the last month since I've been back ( Read more... )

Everything is so hard ( Read more... )

I am 51 years old. My husband is 60. It is beyond bizarre that my grandmother was still alive, and in many respects she was not, although her cells still respirated.  It's been a bit of a battle amongst my uncles and aunts: some thought that every breath was sacred and she should be kept alive by any measure, while others thought a nice four-day ( Read more... )

There was a horrible car accident recently where a young couple on their way to work got killed in a head-on crash with a semi-truck. They left behind three small children. The driver (the husband?) appeared to have been on the wrong side of the winding country road going around a curve at 5:30 in the morning. Dead in a horrible instant. For some ( Read more... )

It's driving me nuts that people are saying "why only care about France when brown places have explosions too!"  I'd ask, "why care about terrorism when so many children drown?"  Or "why care about gun violence when earthquakes happen?"  Basically, it's NOT A CONTEST ( Read more... )

Final First splat draft of something that I have to do in words, despite the complete in appropriateness of all words everywhere for this job.

( Katie, skip this one. )

Sometimes you have a life where you are married to a heart surgeon who also teaches on the faculty of Harvard, you are pregnant with your fourth child (the oldest is still a cutey nine year old) and everything is wonderful ( Read more... )