moving to Romania

Life update, Romania, et cetera

A shout out to Michael, my friend who tugged at my writer’s collar the other day, asking, When are you going to start blogging again?   So here I am. Not necessarily at his behest, but reminder. It’s nice to feel this digital cauldron burns again for hungry readers.   […]

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moving to Bucharest

Where nerves and excitement meet dreams come true

Alright, yall. This post has to happen. It has to. The feels need lines. My life, over a lined loose leaf, hole-punched, types. Prompted? A little. Go. I’m writing on the Uber to JFK. Lots of items got lost, left, in the last minute packing. Blankeys gone, knicknacks patty wacks […]

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what would you change

If you could, what would you change?

I hear Alan Watt’s voice talking about not changing anything, because it is impossible. Maybe the way things are are the way things ought to be. Then, I hear Michael Jackson’s voice saying if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make […]

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favorite love story

Your favorite love story is mine too

There was this badass coworker of mine, a teacher who skedaddled to Hungary last year. We chatted a lot between classes, in the halls of our school. Who knows where he is now (as in, I haven’t messaged him in a while, and he’s probably still modeling three-piece suits on […]

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if the US stopped existing

If the US stopped existing . . .

America is a pretty important place. And yes I call it America, because that is how I grew up hearing it. I like the name, too, what’s there to say. A-mer-i-ca. Merica. Murica.   If it suddenly stopped existing, which if we believe what anyone says, could be any day […]

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why I write

An exercise in self-definition: why I write

What if I told you a story?   Breakfast with mamá, galleria area Houston, 2014 — the year I came back home to live with my parents.   She hints at my finding a job as casually as she stirs the sugar in her coffee. I ruffle my nose. It […]

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travel bucket-list

A Listicle of Fantasy Trips

Why not jot down the top ten bucket-list trips I would fancy? For now they are fantasy, that is deliberately wild. But thus all the more dreamy. Can you guess the common thread?   1. TRANS-SIBERSKI-EXPRESS The first would take a good two months, to do it real chill from […]

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artistic prostitution

Artistic Prostitution: the Bottom Line

This blogger knows he is about to walk through a room cluttered with cliches (ex, “Art for art’s sake,” “Business is an art,” “Selling out,” “Get ya money”), but stepping past each one, eyeing them a second, so as to reach the clear corner of the room, to breathe.   […]

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mentors

Mentors and Mentees

(Athena disguised as Mentor, helping the prince.) “Telemachus, no more shyness, this is not the time! We sailed the seas for this, for news of your father — where does he lie buried? what fate did he meet? So go right up to Nestor, breaker of horses. We’ll make him […]

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Sicilia Siracusa

Sicilia: a mistake to mull over, sing-along

A good chorus can be happy, tragic, annoying but catchy.   Like the one that goes: And I don’t want the world to see me / ’cause I don’t think that they’d understand.   But I know that you will, you will understand. So I’ll show you, I’ll show you […]

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Christmas

A Little Christmas Introspection

It occurs to me that, were I to exaggerate, I have never needed to write. My writing comes from a place of want. I want to write. The struggle is, in this case, when one wants to write, that the quality of the work comes into question. Wanting, one invests […]

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a typical full day

My Present Tense: a typical full day

This morning I assigned my students two simple writing prompts, exercising the present tense. They had to use the words “as soon as,” “first,” “next,” “then,” “before/after,” and “when.” We all learned. For example, I realized, as I chalked the prompts on the blackboard, that “when” plays as the middle […]

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