Last weekend I made a vision board, an activity I also partook in last year with a group of other ladies. Any time I told someone what I was doing on Sunday, I felt the need to hastily tack on “not that I’m a believer in The Secret or anything!” And I’m not (I feel ornery about The Secret, but I have to admit I kind of sort of believe in a branch of magical thinking that could be described as… Read more »
Posts By: Claire
Things my students have said, Part 3
Of various ages, and from long ago. Me to student: “Where was Andrew Jackson born?” Student: “Iowa? No wait…he’s from the south, right? One of those shady places.” Me: “Shady places?” Student: “Yeah, where all those pageant people come from.” Me to young student: “…and discord is the opposite of accord, when things are not in agreement or harmony.” Student: “Like…a discordant note was struck in our conversation when someone brought up the lawsuit?” Me: “Is that from something?” Student:… Read more »
Seasoning
I noticed the seasons shifting a couple of years ago, when October started to stay in the 60s and my birthday, at the end of April, was no longer guaranteed to be warm. When was the last time March came in like a lion and went out like a lamb? May has taken that over; April if we’re lucky. It’s not that climate change has been a secret, but the last few years have been the first times I’ve noticed not… Read more »
Heard in yoga class
Yoga teacher, instructing students to relax in savasana: “Now unhinge your jaw…” #areyousurethatswhatyoumean Pilates teacher: “Really beautiful neutral pelvises, guys.” I was hoping for a bold or metallic pelvis myself. Pilates teacher losing her zen: “Lift your butts…OK. Your head is not your butt. I know it can sometimes seem that way–” Yoga teach encouraging students to releve: “Now shift your weight into your balls…” Well, they do say every body is different.
Awards Season
Linguistic superlatives from life recently: Best appellation: 12-year-old student: “Do you like the snake I won? I named it prefrontal cortex.” Best Venn diagram intersection: The shaded region where “gummy snacks” and “popular sperm bank choices” meet: Trader Joe’s “Scandinavian Swimmers” Swedish Fish knock-off. Best portmanteau of more than two words: Boyfriend describing the zombies who live in a video-game subway station: “Deadizents” (citizen…denizen…resident…dead!) Best observation about words’ failings and shifts: Friend talking about how hard it… Read more »
So much to keep track of
I’ve been trying to get rid of things. Mostly tangible things–clothes that itch or that I got in high school, lightbulbs for lamps I no longer own, tutoring materials from the old SAT–but also digital detritus. Items that exist only as files do take up literal space–on my hard drive, Dropbox, Google account–but I’m not generally lacking for that (at least not since I got an external hard drive). What I’m lacking is the ability to ever listen to all… Read more »
Who are you? Overheard at home
Sometimes my living room is full of mythical beings: “Who here is a small creature, besides me?” “Wait, wait–can you tell me how rage works? I’ve never been a barbarian before.” “I just really want to tweet that my roommate is playing harp in a panda suit right now.” Other times… “If you have an extra free printer, great. But you understand I’m a 32-year-old man, right?” LET’S BE CLEAR! Roll call.
Another Subway Story
I love hearing conversations between couples on the train. Woman telling man about the book she’s been reading: “So then her boyfriend gets killed, right? So he’s dead.” That is generally how it works, yes. Woman: “So then she’s going through his stuff and she finds, like, a video of a woman chained to his bed, being tortured to death.” Man: “Oh, a snuff film.” Woman: “Yes–that’s what they called it! Wait. What does that word mean to you?” Man:… Read more »
Best books I read in 2015
ALL of the books I read in 2015…subjective favorites in bold: Blackwater, by Jeremy Scahill The Infinite Sea, by Rick Yancey On Immunity, by Eula Biss The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell, by John Crawford A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall, by Will Chancellor Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman Hell House, by Richard… Read more »
A subway story
Small child–7? 8?–on the F train sits down next to me, begins quietly singing to the tune of “My Darling Clementine: “Went to Hellll, went to Hellll, went to Hellll just now–” Her 6-ish-year-old sister: “Which one is that? The up one or the down one?” First child: “Heaven is the up, boring one. Hell is down.” (resumes singing) Unfazed grandmother chaperoning them: “That song just goes on and on, doesn’t it.” ETA: Later on, when the train was… Read more »
