Category: Uncategorized
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TEACHING POETRY
My students are SO bright! They noticed and identified every subversive, poetic image in these lyrics by Sly & The Family Stone. That’s why teaching poetry is so important. I hand out a packet of poems and lyrics, and my students have a full day or two to mark it up, circle, and underline whatever…
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SELLING OUR HOME
SELLING OUR HOME Everyone in our circle, including our neighbors, is aware that our home has been listed for sale multiple times, due to our past experiences with real estate agents. Mostly, it’s been an enormous shock. Two critical, ethical sins were made regularly. First, since no one else is in the room or can…
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The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau
I’m re-reading this seminal book for the millionth time, a refresher course of what I have to offer. My favorite quote? If you make your business about helping others, you‘ll always have plenty of work. –Chris Guillebeau My husband and I interviewed Chris when we lived in New York, and we found him passionate and…
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KEEPING HANDS BUSY, BRAIN BUSY
After reading Sutton Foster’s memoir, “Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life,” a few months back, I found a beautifully written, moving backstory of a traumatized childhood. The Audible version is narrated by her. Foster makes crochet and knitting into art, and she uses it to deal with her own anxiety issues. She is a mental…
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WRITING WILL SAVE YOU
Imagine my surprise when I attended a workshop billed as WRITER TO AGENT, with the promise that agents read your five page submission, but when the “Ask An Agent Anything” rolled around, one agent in particular told everyone that he preferred submissions that came from a referral, because that writer has put their entire faith in…
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ON PRESIDENTIAL SHAME SPIRALS
Did you hear the bar when it hit the concrete sidewalk? Trump wants Governor Walz to take responsibility for the shootings, and he won’t even call him. It’s illogical to teach young people that it’s okay not to care about others, it’s downright mean, and show’s once again, how Trump is invested in getting back…
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AXES AND MURDERERS
The first time we lived in Manhattan, my husband and I made friends with an elderly gentleman who told everyone he was looking out for us. When we first moved to NYC, a friend of a friend told us we should meet Bennie and scribbled his telephone number on a card with his name. “Don’t…
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THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS
The news is filled with gossip on the impending Bezos and Sanchez wedding. I am reminded that in the mid 2000s, a friend was contracted to write a book about the starter marriage trend. Every time we talked, she would tell me how the interviews were going. Thousands of men and women volunteered for the…
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FORGETTING IT’S A MAN’S WORLD
Sometimes, I forget what a f*&ked up, paranoid, white, straight man’s world my husband deals with most days, mostly because I am way too busy dealing with the f*@ked up world most women have to deal with. My husband’s a teacher and a lifelong public servant, so his time is spent writing lectures, grading papers,…
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DOG WHEN MOVING
The first time we put our house up for sale, we put a large part of our belongings in a storage cube on our driveway, The response from our Golden Pyrenees, Sheldon Buttercup, was immediate. He’s a shelter dog abandoned several times, so I knew what he was thinking when he started shaking, drooling, and…
Mary Louise Penaz 