Arbitrary Madness. Artistic Exploration. Dope Things.
My first love’s name was Carlos. I was six years old, smitten by both his smile and his baseball skills. Carlos was Carlos Baerga, the Cleveland Indians’ second baseman. During the summer of 1996, he was traded away from the Tribe. I still remember the night of the trade: the news broke while my familyContinue Reading ““How can you not be romantic about baseball?””
After about six months away, my sister returned home, found some wonderful roommates who don’t mind cohabitating with cats, and finally made plans to move Henry and Albie into their new abode. In the days leading up to her return, I became more and more excited about restarting my cat-free existence. Oh, and about seeingContinue Reading “I Am Not A Cat Lady: The End.”
What follows is my third and final story from my travels outside of my hometown that I believe challenges the big, bad, scary world notion that I address in my first contribution. T-Money Days after I graduated from college I packed everything I owned into the back of Victory, my 20 year old Volvo stationContinue Reading “Big Bad World – Part 3: T-Money.”
Between panicked overreactions and sleep-deprived nights, Henry and Albie managed to surprise me by being downright cute at times. Those cute streaks generally led to me taking pictures of the boys and convincing myself that the pictures were specifically for sending to my sister (who would undoubtedly appreciate some photos of the furballs). If I’mContinue Reading “I Am Not A Cat Lady…Usually.”
I had just finished an internship in Uganda and was maximizing my trip to the other side of the world by taking my college friend, Jayanti, up on a longstanding offer to visit her hometown in India. About halfway through my week visiting I accidentally ingested a whole green chili pepper while eating lunch inContinue Reading “Big Bad World – Part 2: ABS Challenge.”
I grew up in the shadows of a steel mill in a roughneck midwestern town. The kind of place where the youth view graduating and getting out as worthy of a lifetime achievement award. My parents are close to life-long residents of this rustbelt town. This town is the world they know. Their understanding of the world outside the town comes from brief experiences andContinue Reading “Big Bad World – Part 1.”
Along with countless lessons about cats, I also learned a decent amount about myself during my six months with Henry and Albie. Some of this new self-knowledge was positive (for example, I now know that I have progressed from “light sleeper” to “can sleep through some amount of cat-inflicted face-petting without waking up with aContinue Reading “I Am Not A Cat Lady: Worrywart.”
A few years ago when my president was black, I already had several years of practice rethinking racism and white supremacy. Like Neo in the Matrix, there were some very basic rules of my reality that Mr. Obama seemed to break. Let’s face it, many people like myself never expected a black family to inhabitContinue Reading “Jim Crow 2.0”
Cohabitating with Henry and Albie in a studio apartment had its share of challenges. As I’ve chronicled (read: complained about) over the last several weeks, there were very few opportunities to relax without being accosted by a curious cat. Given the close quarters, though, I figured that the one upside to the living arrangement wasContinue Reading “I Am Not A Cat Lady: How Did You Get There?!”
My time as a cat guardian taught me several good lessons. Sure, the most obvious one was that I’m even more high-strung than I ever realized I was; still, there were a few others that were almost as valuable… Double stick tape is a win: It took a while, but Albie eventually discovered that heContinue Reading “I Am Not A Cat Lady: Lessons Learned.”
