HOLY GUACAMOLE it has been 3 months since my last email, WHOOPSIE-DO This semester has been TOUGH on nearly every front: school, social, (co)parenting, physical and mental health. But, now it is April. The seasons have turned, the earth has warmed, the sun has re-emerged, the plants are greening and blooming, and I am feeling rather the same. Today is also genetic counseling Match Day, which I think may always be my personal declaration of independence day. Two Match Days ago I began the...
over 1 year ago • 1 min read
Last week the Cincinnati area had way too much snow and not nearly enough school days in session. Our apartment management team did a great job of clearing the streets and a kind neighbor even dug my car out for me, so I didn't have to lift a finger for snow removal! But it did make me think of something I learned shoveling the driveway a few years ago in Bloomington. It was one of those storms where an inch or more of snow fell every hour. At some point someone (a neighbor, perhaps)...
over 1 year ago • 3 min read
A few weeks ago I went for a hike at Keehner Park, which I had never been to before. I looked up a route on AllTrails to check mileage ahead of time, but decided to just follow the trail signs when I got there. Which worked fine until about 10 minutes in when I encountered this: Like...literally what lol. A red signpost with the number six and three arrows pointing different directions. There is a QR code labeled "Scan me for trail map." It turns out that there are WAY MORE TRAILS at Keehner...
almost 2 years ago • 2 min read
WELP I haven't sent anything since October 10 apparently. And that's because since my last email, I have been living with a slow-motion gynecological apocalypse that finally culminated in the unintentional expulsion of my IUD a little over two weeks ago. And then I experienced a breakup(?) (just leave the question mark alone for now lol) AND THEN I had a bout of pleurisy which made it impossible to breathe without sometimes excruciating pain. AND THEN my chest X-ray came back abnormal so I...
almost 2 years ago • 3 min read
I've taken pottery wheel classes throughout my life, and I've always struggled with pulling the walls. (Well, I've struggled with everything, but my last round of classes in 2022 finally helped me nail down centering the clay and staying centered, mostly by slowing the fuck down. And if that's not a metaphor for my life, I don't know what is lol) Pulling the walls is the process of moving clay from the bottom of the piece out and up away to form whatever shape you're going for. Historically,...
about 2 years ago • 3 min read
I'm experimenting with the format of this newsletter, inspired by Maggie Frank-Hsu's delightfully honest newsletter, Momsplaining. I don't really have a plan for this, so here's the concept of an essay. I’ve been wondering since we moved here if it matters, the 25ish minutes a day I spend walking to and from the bus stop waiting to send off and receive my child for the day. Does it matter when I wave to the bus with an army of other parents? Does it matter that I am there after school to walk...
about 2 years ago • 3 min read
This Month I moved myself in, moved L in, started him in 3rd grade, started myself in 19th grade (OUCH lol), got my Ohio driver's license, tags, and registration, signed up for library cards, found my critical mass of 5-6 local mom friends from a delightful spectrum of past life stages, cooked a bunch of tasty food, started working on one of my book projects again, hiked and paddleboarded and found fossils, and went to Meijer, Costco, and Trader Joe's more times than strictly necessary. I am...
about 2 years ago • 1 min read
This Week By this time next week, I will be in my new home in Cincinnati, Ohio. After more than a year of waiting, working, and advocating, it is finally time for a new chapter of my life to begin. My brain and body are very tired (because I spent the day moving boxes and also, uh, refinishing a not-small piece of furniture that I acquired yesterday, and also, uh, acquiring another not-small piece of furniture, I PROMISE I WILL STOP NOW) so here's a poem I wrote a few weeks ago that is at...
about 2 years ago • 2 min read
This Week Today is not my ninth wedding anniversary, and I've been thinking about cancer. Cancer is so hard to treat because it is fundamentally an excess of healthy cell processes: growth, replication, angiogenesis (blood vessel formation), and migration from one tissue to another. One genetic gas pedal may get stuck in the ON position while another genetic brake line gets cut while still another genetic gateway gets disabled, all accelerating the cancer cell's growth out of control. The...
over 2 years ago • 3 min read
