Sometimes you have to hit the bottom in order to bounce back. In Kazimierz Dabrowski’s theory of personality development, psychological tension and anxiety are seen as key to growth. Per Wikipedia’s nutshelling of Positive Disintegration: Dabrowski saw these disintegrations as a key element in the overall developmental process. Crises challenge our status quo and cause […]
The growth of compassion
Growing up in an agricultural center, I knew white people who liked to make offensive generalizations about the Mexican-Americans who worked the fields and were (so I was told) taking over the town. But I also lived and went to school among said Mexican-Americans, and they seemed like regular people with some differences of culture […]
Choosing myself: A creative odyssey in 2015
In the new economy, you’re supposed to pick yourself instead of waiting around to be chosen. The times practically demand it: Graduating into the recession, not even Target, Walmart, Safeway, Home Depot, or 7-Eleven would choose me. Enter temp land. But this isn’t a sad story. Being chopped back to your essence has a way […]
Stella Louise, internet starlet
The cat’s a bigger deal than I am, and don’t think she lets me forget it. Back in my compulsively-photographing-and-videoing-everything-so-I-won’t-have-to-participate phase, I noticed that I had two clips of family cats making odd noises. The first was my brother’s cat asking to be let outside. The other was my Mom’s cat, Stella, making a kind […]
New song: “Everybody’s Got a Chance”
This isn’t a holiday song per se, but it does seem fitting for a season in which people embrace their kindest, most charitable impulses. Well, some people do. Others elbow strangers in the face for flat-screen TVs and get way too drunk at office parties. And, you know, that’s okay too. We’re all just running […]
Trader Joe’s
If you’re heading to Trader Joe’s, go the first hour after they open or the last hour before they close. Any other time is asking for trouble. During one ill-timed visit to pick up a few things, I glided in and cut an immediate right into the produce area. Even at Trader Joe’s, this section […]
Pumpkin Pancakash Polka
pan·cak·ash (pan-kok-uzh) When I run “pancakes” through an online translator, the Portuguese word it comes back with is “panquecas.” My full-blooded Portuguese grandma says the old folks she knew used to call them “pan-koksh.” Come to think of it, that might just be the regular English word muttered through a mouthful of linguiça. Anyway, I […]