“Mommy, get me some dessert!” Nicholas stood at my right elbow. I looked pointedly at the pizza in my hand and back at him, but my coming-up-on-five-year-old is blissfully (or perhaps willfully) immune to messages sent via body language. Time for plan B. “First of all,” I said, “that’s not how you ask. Second, am…
Read MoreAll articles filed in culture
A Stream Of Consciousness Rant About Pop Music
Katy Perry was singing on the radio when Nicholas popped out with, “Is this song called ‘Tiger Rahr’?” I chuckled inwardly at the way his brain changed “roar” into “rahr,” and then suddenly chuckled at myself, because all our kids yell “rahr” instead of “roar” as a result of being chased them around the house…
Read MoreThe Balance Between Authenticity and TMI
I’ve spent my writing time the last several days researching literary agents. When you Google someone’s name, you get a lot of clutter, but if you take the time, you can often get a good sense of who they are by the things they say online. For an author hoping to find someone to represent…
Read MoreWords Matter (a primer on disability language)
First, I am fully aware that many people are going to look at this as splitting hairs. I did, until my daughter came along. How do you refer to a person with a disability? If you are like most people, you slap a label in front of the name: Julianna is a “Downs child” or…
Read MoreSex, Love, and Women’s Fiction
I’ve been reading a lot of women’s fiction lately, and reading it with a more critical eye than is usual for me. As I contemplate the novel query stage, I’m analyzing how my book fits into what’s already out there. There’s a lot of really good writing out there: great character depth and engrossing storytelling.…
Read MoreAn Epic, Blog-Worthy Doctor Visit
Over the summer, I have been to the doctor with my kids eight times, plus Michael’s tubes and four visits to have Julianna’s glasses fixed after Michael got hold of them. It’s always tiresome and chaotic, but nothing compares to yesterday’s ENT visit. Let’s back up a week, to Julianna’s well child check, the visit…
Read MoreWe aren’t losing people because of worship. We’re losing them because we’re hypocrites.
There’s a blog post making the rounds right now about the dismal record of churches, both mega- and traditional, to retain their youth into adulthood. The author and all the commenters have their pet theories about why this is–the age-old argument between “worship isn’t relevant” (i.e. it’s too traditional) and “the worship is too contemporary”…
Read MoreThomas Merton on Politics
Some words of wisdom from Thomas Merton for your Wednesday. I put these quotes together from two different chapters of “New Seeds of Contemplation,” in which he is addressing “The Moral Theology of the Devil” and “The Root of War is Fear.” His context for the latter is the Cold War, but all of these…
Read MoreIQ and EQ
I’ve never had my IQ measured. Have you? I’m not going to ask people to share results, but I’m curious as to how many of us have been tested. How about a quick poll? Everybody knows what IQ is: a measure of how smart you are. We use it to measure both ends of the…
Read MoreShould Men Shave….Everything?
As bloggers, sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. We get so caught up in the prettiness of our prose and the profundity of our thoughts, we start to think that the most important thing we do is get site traffic and lots of comments. Well, yesterday I wrote a very heartfelt post, and your response…
Read More
Kathleen M. Basi 