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Marching in Solidarity from My HomeI am a woman who lives in the Washington DC, but did not attend the Women’s March on Washington. But from the minute that I saw a Facebook event be created about the Women’s March on Washington to the very moment that I was at home watching it on TV, I have felt nothing more than completely involved with the rally to stand up for human’s rights, love, and peace. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Past of Pageantry If someone had told me when I was 12 years old that in five years I would not only compete in a beauty pageant, but also win, I would have thought they were either downright crazy or just mean.
I should preface this by saying that at 12 years old I was in a pretty awkward place in life. Severe scoliosis put me in a rigid back brace for two years, leaving me no other choice for clothes, but big bulky sweaters and oversized band tee shirts and flannels. Thankfully this was the 90s and I was all about grunge music, but I still felt incredibly insecure about my situation. I closed off inside myself and hoped for a more “normal” future, but seriously doubted I’d ever have one. I became a loner, camping out in my room and daydreaming the hours away. When the back brace didn’t work, I underwent major spinal surgery with titanium rod implantation, allowing me to skip most of my freshman year of high school and bask in months’ worth of Vicodin. Bedridden and sentenced to months of physical therapy to learn how to use my new body, I continued to spend a lot of time alone, isolation made all the more bearable with a number of obsessions and compulsions—writing, the Internet and intense body maintenance, especially in the realm of body hair removal. I clung to these obsessions even when I returned to school, feeling a little more open without the back brace, but still painfully self-conscious. Fashion magazines also became an obsession, their covers offering new and beautiful white actresses I tried to emulate as best I could. Gwyneth Paltrow playing Estella in the adaptation of Great Expectations became my ideal of beauty, appearing smooth and slim and seductive throughout the film. I copied dramatic gazes from perfume ads, refused to leave the house without red lipstick, bought green contact lenses to cover up my brown hue and coated my face in my mom’s expensive facial creams that smelled like jasmine and perfection. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Brief Account of My Time in India By Gypsy Mack QuailBellMagazine.com I love to travel. It is what I’m best at. When I travel, I never stubbornly stick to previously made plans. I am open to new situations, I am eager and curious, and I always try to fully experience my surroundings. I observe the people who live in places that I am just an outsider to, and I take note of how they walk, talk, eat, and interact. I try to copy those people, and fully integrate myself into places so very different from my own home. I love to travel because I fall in love with every single place I go. Oftentimes, I take mental pictures of my surroundings, so that I can see those places forever. I try to capture sounds and smells and sensations in my memory, because I love it all so much that I never want to forget. I went to India last December. I was gone for two months. I got back just three days before my fifteenth birthday. That was nearly eight months ago, but it feels so recent that sometimes I still accidentally say, “I just got back from India." Before that, about a year and a half ago, I went to the UK and Ireland with my best friend. And before that, I was seven, hiking the base of a volcano, surrounded by the sound of howler monkeys. I didn't know it then, but I had made the best and worst mistake of my life: traveling. It became an addiction, but I never, ever want to stop. Almost one year ago, my mom and my six-year-old sister River and I went along with my ten-year-old sister Phoenix’s homeschool co-op for a field trip. The co-op, called the Bhakti School, is run by a family that my own family has known for years. We were going to the UVA Lawn for a guided meditation with Deepak Chopra. Since then, I have never seen so many fancy white people interested in yoga at one time! Afterwards, my mom asked me if I wanted to go to India. It was completely spur of the moment. It felt so random, yet perfect. I said yes, but I was nervous. I hardly knew anything about India outside of the small bit of knowledge that I gleaned from geography in seventh grade, and I wasn’t even particularly interested in India. But I wanted to travel, and I was very curious. I was going to go with the Bhakti School family, and be the au pair for the two boys, who were nine and eleven at the time. Back then, I had known the family for a while, but hadn’t really seen them regularly since I was a small kid and did homeschool co-ops. Now, it’s kind of funny to think that I didn’t really know them, because they’re kind of like my second family. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
What the Tooth Fairy Taught Me About Feminism By Sara Leslie Miller QuailBellMagazine.com When I lost my first tooth, I expected the tooth fairy to leave me a dollar or two like she did for all my pioneering gap-toothed friends. A couple of loose teeth would trade in nicely for an after-school TCBY parfait, or so my seven-year-old logic went, because children don’t understand irony. My baby teeth were a little late to the party, but when I finally wiggled one out, I did not get a Washington or a Lincoln. Instead, the tooth fairy left me a large silver coin with a woman’s face I didn’t recognize. Because I knew my mother was the true power behind all fictional visitors, I immediately brought the coin to her and demanded an explanation, mainly, “Does TCBY accept this form of payment?”
My mother sat with me on the edge of my parents’ bathtub and proudly explained that it was a Susan B. Anthony dollar. Minted from 1979 to 1981, it was the first U.S. coin that honored a real, human female figure. (This was a few years before the Sacagawea “golden dollar.”) Susan B. Anthony was as brave and significant as any male president. She was a rebel, devoting her life to the anti-slavery and women’s suffrage movements—Look her up! She’s a total badass. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Yes, Dear, They Are Playing Our Songs Editor's Note: This essay is centered around the narrator's relationship with Albany, New York, state capital and college town. Designed as a mixtape-style EP with four tracks of liner notes, the narrator provides a glimpse into her first year as upstate New York resident and the rights of passage of a woman concluding her late 20's—hitting her stride within her profession, establishing a personal space, and celebrating a life of "single blessedness." “Local Girls” Graham Parker & The Rumour
I return to Albany after a 3-year attempt at domesticity in the Green Mountains. My “lost weekend” a failed experiment. Albany is the city where I grew up. I came here at eighteen—a baby-faced, anxiety-ridden college freshman. I left at 21 with my Master’s degree and mixed feelings. Now 28, I struggle to figure out where I fit in here—I am not a local and my academic days seem far behind me. I travel two to three weeks every month for work—Chicago. New York. Kansas City. Milwaukee. I’m that person who goes “let me check my schedule” before making commitments. People stop inviting you after a while. My apartment is an attempt to define the life of a working woman. An ecru couch and sisal rugs accent restored hardwood floors—only possible within a “no pets, no kids” lifestyle. Rich coffee-colored leather chairs designed for snow days with chai lattes served in hand-thrown pottery. Books stacked on every surface with my own particular logic ascribed their organization. A kitchen island for a desk, the butcher-block top spacious enough to accommodate the latest work assignment. It is my sanctuary. My female answer to the bachelor pad or man cave. I try to invent the feminine term, but all my suggestions sound like slang for vagina. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Banana Boy I ran from my locker and through the empty hallway to the dim nook housing the television studio. As I pushed through the door, a cackle exploded from Felicity*. She and Dorothy* were sprawled on the green corduroy sofa. This was my cue to immediately take the beaten up armchair and have Dorothy bring me up to speed on the latest story. The gossip had already begun, and this was essential knowledge—even if it made me squirm to think about it later.
If you had asked fifteen-year-old me to name the local master of sex, I would've said Felicity. Despite being a brain when it came to school subjects, I knew nothing about sex. I hadn't even had my first kiss yet. Felicity was just the opposite. Two years older than me, she was in danger of flunking out of high school. Yet she seemed to hold the key to the magical, mystical world of sex. My first semester sophomore year, Felicity was my oracle. That's why I tagged along with Dorothy to listen to Felicity's monologues before the first bell rang. Dorothy, a good friend, was in my grade and had met Felicity in an elective class. Dorothy was equally as clueless as I was. We looked up to Felicity because we could ask her anything without fear of judgement. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Ladies In Love I read a remarkable article about how saying “I have a boyfriend” to deter unwanted sexual advances is counterproductive. The writer makes a good point of explaining why saying "I have a boyfriend" to ward off unwanted advances implies that you are “spoken for” as opposed to speaking for yourself. In the heat of rejecting strangers’ come-ons, I almost never contemplate the politics of what I’m saying. In that moment, I’m trying to diffuse the situation with a “whatever works” policy. I always thought of the "I have a boyfriend" excuse as a convenient half-truth since it’s not entirely false. An imposing stranger is hardly entitled to any answer, let alone a thoughtful and honest one, which would involve my elaborating upon my sexual orientation. And I admit it: I eventually started saying “I am a lesbian” after I learned the hard way that these abrasive guys mostly disregard what I now call the "girlfriend alibi."
If I tell the guy who won't leave me alone at a bar that I have a boyfriend and there are no men beside me, he’ll usually start talking about how “lucky” he is, how he isn’t there with me and doesn’t need to know, what kinds of food they'd like to eat out of my pants, etc. These lines are all pathetic attempts to convince me that I should choose this deluded crackerjack over my partner. Well, if the boyfriend alibi isn't that effective, the girlfriend alibi is even less effective. These strange men hardly ever accept that I’m with someone, let alone a female someone. But most of the time, an imaginary girlfriend simply doesn't work as well as an imaginary being that they imagine to have a penis. I have a feeling that if I were to tell these suitors about my girlfriend's penis, they would see me as more "weird" than "taken." They'd probably go on about how I haven't had "a real man" and why the live, in-the-flesh man in front of me is the perfect candidate to give me a taste of "authentic" man-meat. #cringecity Besides, to out my girlfriend would risk her life. Imagine an unfamiliar person telling you that they're in a relationship. Now, try to imagine asking them if they have sex together. I visualized this scenario and laughed because it reminds me of how children ask if you kiss your spouse. Let's face it: These guys are not asking me questions like that because they think that I might be asexual or because they have some kind of respectful intention like that. It's a rule of society that's not as unwritten as you think because it is, in fact, explicit. When someone tells you that they have a significant other, it's usually a polite way of saying "no thanks." Until monogamy stops being the norm, it's going to stay that way. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
How One Haircut Changed My Perspective On Girly By Kate Hickey QuailBellMagazine.com When I was twenty, I cut off all of my hair. Granted, I’d never had super long hair, but it usually fell to about my shoulders. But one day I walked into the salon, clippers were applied, and I walked out with my first pixie cut. It was a strange feeling. I’d never realized how much of my own personal femininity was bound up in my hair. Immediately, I felt as though I had to compensate for that femininity in ways I never had before. In those first few weeks without much hair, I learned a lot about make-up, blow-drying, and accessorizing—all things I’d never really given much thought to before, when I had girly hair. I’d never considered myself to be a particularly feminine person. I generally preferred pants to dresses (although that has changed…), didn’t wear a lot of make up, and chose comfort over style. But suddenly, with my safety net femininity blanket completely gone, I had some soul searching to do. The year I spent actively keeping my hair short was a time of personal growth. While I buzzed my hair down as far as I possibly could, I was figuring out a lot of things about myself. I wore more dresses. I bought nicer shoes. Most importantly, to me, I learned that I should focus my make-up on my lips rather than my eyes. I grew into a sense of style that was ultimately shaped and cradled by having short hair. Femininity is something that is a part of me in a way I can’t explain. Sure, I pick and choose which aspects of femininity are more or less important to me, but in general, I adhere to most of the standards. Realizing that femininity is a part of who I am made me feel better about doing things that I previously thought were “too girly”—like caring about clothes or liking the color pink. A lot of feminine things get a bad rap these days. For some reason, people have decided that it’s better to make bimbo jokes about put-together women than to take a moment to think about the role femininity plays in our society. I think it would be healthy if everyone out there who reads this takes a moment to think about something feminine you like. Something downright girly that makes you smile. And don’t be ashamed of it. #Real #Femininity #SelfLove #Hair #Buzzcuts #ShortHair #BodyImage #Womanhood #Feminism #Haircuts #Hairstyles Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Things You Must Start Doing By Your First Period Catch your first crimson wave? It’s time to put your grandma panties on and grow the fetch up. If you haven’t already accomplished these things, your life is basically over and no one will ever love you, except that mangy cat no one else would adopt and that girl at Sephora who’s paid to feed on your insecurities. (Seriously, someone tell me. Is my skin really beautiful or do I need primer? I’m so confused, Sephora girl.)
• Stop wearing full-coverage grandma panties, even on your period. You’re a total dirty slut if someone sees your panties on your period, but everyone can tell. It’s panty science. “Laundry day” isn’t real. Erase these words from your vocabulary or no one will ever love you. • Find a fattening ingredient to be allergic to. Gluten is a little passé, but like I said, you should’ve done this by now. If you admit you’re on a diet, no one will ever love you. • Look like you woke up airbrushed without makeup and shame everyone else for not being “natural.” Extra points if you post a #nomakeup selfie to IntaFaceTwit #innerbeauty #nofilter #flawless #boyslikeitnatural #Idontneedadermatologist #toobadifyoudontlooklikethis #insertcomplimentsandotherthingshere #TELLMEIMBEAUTIFUL #IknowImhot. If you act like you care about your appearance, no one will ever love you. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
You Have My Bow By Fay Funk QuailBellMagazine.com The year was 2001. I was eleven years old, and still very much a child. A dorky child at that. My uniform of a baggy yellow sweatshirt and too-long sweatpants complimented my lopsided mullet and crooked glasses perfectly. While my old elementary school friends were joining the basketball team and going on awkward first dates with boys, I was drawing myself as a Sailor Scout and listening to Linkin Park. The naughtiest thing I ever did was sneak into the TV room past midnight to watch Inuyasha. I was, without a doubt, the most non-sexual creature on the planet.
2001 was also the year the first Lord of the Rings live action movie came to theaters, and like any proper dork I went with a few of my equally dorky friends a few days after the release. With our parents as chaperones of course, since the movie was PG-13. I knew nothing about the Lord of the Rings going into the movie, but the enthusiastic squawking of all my friends told me that I was in for a treat. As the lights dimmed and the story of the One Ring began, I felt a tingling of excitement rush through my body. This was going to be awesome. It was so fucking boring. The hobbits didn’t do anything! They just bumbled around and hid from the bad guys. That’s all they did. Aragorn and Gandalf could at least fight the Nazgul, but after that all they did was brood sullenly and speak cryptically about what was coming, respectively. Super dull, the whole thing. I spaced out for most of the first half of the movie. By the Council of Elrond, I was ready for a nap. This movie was a huge waste of time. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Shit My (Non-biological) Kids Say I am what I like to call a “Professional Child.” I work with kids, and I take the business of play pretty seriously. My old boss used to love to say that we get paid to play, and the phrase has definite weight. I’m in the business of fun, but that doesn’t mean all I do is giggle and supervise. When working with such raw flows of imagination, shit can get real.
There was the time a grinning kindergartner who fancied himself clever drew 9/11—a plane crashing into the Twin Towers—during a game of Pictionary, and the time another child with golden brown skin asked me, “What’s white?” in reference to race. I’ve worked with kids wrestling with culture and gender identities, kids with autism and ADHD, adopted kids and kids with parents who won’t even look at each other anymore. Kids who fight non-stop with their siblings and kids who are dealing with the everyday struggles of figuring out what it means to be alive. I've worked at a couple of private schools in different cities, both in and out of the Bay Area. Being in such close proximity to some of the most liberal and progressive minds around, you'd expect a Bay Area private school to be extraordinarily forward minded—and you would be far from disappointed at the phenomenal way some of the societal issues that accompany race, gender and sexuality are taught there. Other schools I've taught at desperately need to reimagine what an inclusive community looks like however. This past summer I returned to an old camp I used to work for out of love for my kids and coworkers. It's a camp at a school with so many aspects that I love; a school that has extended arms of graceful acceptance and I have returned that kindness with gratitude for my employment. Unfortunately though, frank discussions about the social constructs is not among the aspects that I can claim takes place there. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Too Busy of a Bird By Naomi Yung QuailBellMagazine.com My friend and her boyfriend are extremely devoted, despite going to two separate schools, an hour away from each other. It amazes me, really, because I don’t see how anyone has the time to commute to a different city. I tell her that if I was ever in a relationship with someone who went to a different school, I probably wouldn’t have the motivation to visit them every day. “I’m busy,” I would say. And it’s true. I would be busy. “I’m tired,” I’d say. And it’s true. I would be tired. And she tells me, “Well then, if you’re always too tired or too busy to go and visit them, then you probably don’t actually want to be in a relationship with them, and you’re not committed enough.” And I nod, because it’s true. I’m a noncommittal person, and it makes me disappointed that I can’t be any more than that. I know that the time will come, however, when I will actually want to commit myself, and it scares me that the feeling will not be reciprocated. In my mind’s eye, I will have been dating them for about a month, and I will be foolishly in love with them. And then one day I will ask them if they want to visit me, and there will be a thread of déjà-vu running through my head that my brain does not grasp until much later when they say, “I’m busy.” #Real #Love #Commitment #Relationships #Sex #Dating #LDRs #Boyfriends #Girlfriends #CollegeRelationships #TooBusy Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Fairies? Aliens? Who knows! It ain’t easy being green, especially when the strange villagers who find you find you next to a pit once used to trap animals. They look at your weird clothes (perhaps fashioned out of leaves and meadowgrass) and hear a foreign language completely different from their provincial English. Coupled with your green skin and general bewilderment, there's little chance that they would take you for a human creature.
In the 12th century, the legendary Green Children of Woolpit found themselves in that same predicament when they were discovered on the outskirts of Woolpit in Suffolk, England. The folklore surrounding the Green Children of Woolpit began either during the reign of King Stephen or Henry II. The town's modern name derives from a linguistic corruption of the original name (“Wolfpittes”), stemming from the ancient pits that people used to capture wolves when they still inhabited England. The two unusual children (one girl and one boy) were disoriented and crying from starvation and confusion. Fortunately, Sir Richard de Caine of Wilkes gave them a home. Despite being famished, the children refused to eat anything the adults tried to feed them. As options dwindled, Sir Richard's servants presented the children with freshly-reaped beanstalks. The children instantly brightened and lived off of beans from thereon. The girl eventually welcomed the foreign foods the adults introduced into her diet and lost her green skin. But her brother couldn’t diversify his diet and retained his green complexion. He grew more melancholic and depressed with each passing day until he died. Yet his sister lived on to learn English and assumed the name “Agnes Barre." She also married a royal ambassador and lived with him in Norfolk. Rumor has it that their neighbors thought that Agnes Barre’s behavior was "wanton." The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Carrie Bradshaw's Hypothetical OKCupid Profile shoeslover
32 • F •New York, NYMy self-summary: I'm a lifelong Upper East Sider. Though I grew up in Connecticut, we all know life begins when you move to New York. Like any New Yorker, I'm better at making reservations than I am at making toast. I write a column for The New York Star and I've written two books. What I'm doing with my life: What does every Upper East Sider do with her life? I love shopping, Sunday brunch with my best girlfriends, parties, sample sales and going out to dinner. I'm really good at: Running in high heels, making headlines and being a good friend. I'm good at some other stuff too, but you'll have to take me on a date to find that out ;) The first things people usually notice about me: What I'm wearing and my curly blonde hair. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Preciousness of HealthEditor's Note: This piece originally appeared on The Huffington Post. You who have only known good health gaze in the mirror to bemoan your looks. You decide your hair is too thin or dull. You think your slightly yellowed teeth disgust rather than invite. You fret over freckles and squint at other tiny imperfections until they're bloated and staggering in your mind's eye. You obsess over the nonessential because the essential is a given. Even though it's tap-dancing and clanging cymbals, you do not see Good Health. It is routine and therefore invisible.
When you are sick, you notice good health like you notice a cascade flowing in the desert. You see good health when your cough won't go away. You see good health when pain holds your whole body captive. You see good health when you are too weak to feed yourself. You see good health when you cannot walk because your feet or legs or brain won't let you. You see good health when your wrists burn too hot to type. You see good health when you cannot sleep, night after night. You see good health when you admit, perhaps through tears or screams, that you do not control your body, the whole or its parts. You see good health—aglow and glorious—on your deathbed in whatever company you may keep during those last moments. It is then that everyone seems ruddy, jovial, and especially alive, even if they are in fact sallow and grieving. You also see good health when someone you love knows poor health. A heart attack. Cancer. AIDs. Something yet unknown and for which a cure cannot even be imagined. But poor health in a stranger? Such a disease or condition might as well be an urban legend. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The 9/11 and Iraq War Generation The footage of 9/11 is still one of the most frightening visuals that I have ever seen. I have only seen the full footage once, in a classroom setting, about five years after the day. I cannot bear to watch it again. On September 11th, 2001, I was 11 years old. Now I am a teacher to middle school students. My students are the same age I was that fateful day and they were all born after 9/11. One day my peers and I will be the last generation alive that remembers America before 9/11. We will be the last living Americans who can recall exactly what 9/11 was like from a child's perspective.
At the time of the first plane crash, I was waiting at a bus stop in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I went through the entire school day without hearing a single mention of what had happened. Once I got back home, my mother and brother greeted me with the news. I didn't understand what was going on. Well, to be exact, I understood the facts, but I did not understand the gravitas of the situation. To me, an act of war was a commonplace thing, having grown up seeing footage of domestic terrorism and bombings in other countries almost every evening on NBC. This just seemed like another one. As the week rolled on, I understood why it was such a horrifying event to everyone else but me. This was an attack on us. 9/11 is what taught me that there was a difference. It's hard to wrap my mind around that concept as an adult, but until 9/11 I had no national pride or sense of community with other Americans. I just thought that we all lived on Earth. When my classmates and I asked our teachers why we were attacked, the answer was simple: "They were jealous of our freedom." I ate that up. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Picking Out School Clothes I was upset that my mom left to work without laying out my school clothes. She always left them at the foot of my bed. Huffing and puffing, I looked around the room and under my bed, but they weren't there. Then I heard three voices coming from my parent's bedroom next door: my Dad's, the reporter on the television, and my Mom's.
Thank God Mom is still here. Maybe she isn't going to work. Maybe I can fake sick to stay home with her today. With my best fake cough and sick face I made a grand entrance into my parents room...but they didn't notice me. Their eyes were glued to the TV. I coughed again. Shock and awe...at the TV that is. What are they looking at? I walked over to my parents so that I could see the TV. Two burning buildings and the words "Terrorist Attacks" flashed across the screen. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Then Something Bad Sort of Happened Before the sort of bad thing happened, I believed that I was the kind of woman to whom sort of bad things didn’t happen. After all, I am clever, white, and a feminist, but not so much of a feminist that that it’s off-putting. Like, I’m just barely enough of a feminist to get published on this site, so please do not hold that against me in the comments. Plus, I am middle class and have been to college, which is statistically proven to prevent not only sort of bad things, but also absolutely horrible things and even minor inconveniences.
Now I have established that I am very much like you and thus deserving of your empathy, unlike people who are not like you, and can proceed tell you more about the thing that happened, since you only clicked this link to see if the thing that happened to me was actually all that bad. When the thing I’m about to describe happened, I was younger than I am now because it happened in the past. It happened partially due my own naivety but also for other reasons that are obvious to you. Be sure to list them in the comments below. It was absolutely horrible and possibly sort of sexual. Pretend that here I have sketched in graphic detail the exact sequence of events in excruciating detail. Now you are free to skim the rest of the article or close this window entirely, since you only clicked this link to read exactly how the sort of bad thing went down. But trust me, I did not enjoy experiencing the horrible thing you’ve just kind of creepily enjoyed reading about. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Days and Nights in South Ashkelon Editor's Note: This piece first appeared on Woman Around Town. Pictured: Sarah Sullivan, Ali Somer, and Daniel Gavens. In the hazy early-morning light, we could barely see our patient. He lay fifteen feet down in a construction pit of loose rocks, broken and moaning with his leg twisted unnaturally under him. Our ambulance team—Moti the senior paramedic, Gavy the senior EMT, and Danel and I the junior EMTs—glanced at each other anxiously. The injured man below us was barely conscious and gasping for air—a result of hemopneumothorax, a trauma injury where blood and air rushes into the pleural space and collapses the lung. This should have been a call for theNatan, the Mobile ICU, and not the regular ambulance patrolling fractured hips and diabetic syncope.
Danel and I rushed to the ambulance for the backboard while Moti and Gavy climbed a rickety ladder down into the pit. A few minutes later Moti surfaced, his dark hair slicked with sweat. “That guy’s in bad shape,” he said gravely. “We need to get him out of there stat, but he’s too heavy to lift up the ladder on the backboard.” A soft groan came from the pit. “Call the bulldozer over!” Moti directed. Danel and I passed the backboard and supplies down the ladder while the bulldozer slowly lowered its jaws five, ten, twelve feet down into the pit. Gavy and Moti hurriedly strapped our patient to the backboard and on the count of three lifted him into the jaws of the bulldozer. Gavy climbed in next to our patient and yelled, “Raise us up!” The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Crisp Air and Turning Leaves Ah Fall, the crisp morning air, the sweet breeze whisking away our humid Summer travels, the anticipation of color, of transformation, of newness. Autumn brings learning and leaving and loving, and bright trees full of Fruity Pebble colored leaves. Even if you aren’t headed back to school, the feeling of anticipation as the air changes sways you to new discoveries. With that change comes possibility, reformation, education, death and glorious rebirth.
Fall is the most wonderful time of year! The relief as days head from hot-and-hotter to cool-and-cleaner is palpable. We open our windows, put away the AC units and feel freshness renew our insides and out. The world is full of magic this time of year! As we move toward the Equinox on September 22, we breathe in the magic of the coming season. We might want to borrow from the Hebrew and celebrate the Jewish New Year, September 26, and dip our apples into honey wishing for a sweeter future. We can atone, and fast if we feel the need, and as we move forward into the magical season we prepare our spells and cast them when we’re ready. Candles burn brighter, pumpkins and spice make the air sweet and savory and we become tighter and smoother as we shed our open toes and pull on our walking boots. To help with finding your magical reality in this changing season, I’ve compiled an eclectic list of books filled with wonder, poetry, spells, and haunted places. Enjoy! The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Writing Teachers I Have Known The first one I found online. She taught Intro to Chic Lit, and I signed up in ignorance and desperation. I had been writing about a mom on the Upper East Side who was losing it after having her first child.
A thinly veiled diary, but that first year, writing seemed my only defense against a well of fears I had never before suffered. In motherhood, I lost my identity and simultaneously found a new life. Nursing, singing, naming every little thing we passed. Bird, boat, tree, light. The joy of hearing her voice, as it formed, from gurgles to sounds to sentences. My experience felt singular, though universal. Writing fueled my days and helped me process the difficult parts. I would watch my child in the late morning, after playtime, for the first signs of sleep. A lengthened blink, the drooping eyelid, a mere yawn. Sometimes, I had to walk her in the stroller around the block or out to the East River and back before she’d go under, but thoughts of writing filled my mind as I paced. I’d repeat phrases like a mantra so I’d remember later when she slept. And I’d rush to my computer and pour out the words like balm for my soul. After a few weeks of virtual class, the teacher responded by email. “Chic lit is usually funny and flirtatious.” I apologized to her. To myself, I criticized my writing. It was dark and depressing, maybe even murky. But the door had opened. I didn’t turn back. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
5 Artisanal Foods That Piss Me Off Call me a penny-pinchin' philistine but the artisanal-everything movement is making me crazy. (And other people poor.) Here are the top five everyday foods that have been elevated from the secular to sublime:
1. Pickles. Eight dollars for a jar of pickles? Cucumbers cost about 35 cents, people. And last time I checked, a pickle is by definition nothing more than said cucumber soaked in vinegar and sugar. Unless you squeezed that vinegar from the sweet swollen teat of the Virgin Mary you've got to be kidding me. (This goes the same for beets, okra or string beans.) Putting things in a mason jar does not perform alchemy. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
What My Calendar Looks Like By Ghia Vitale QuailBellMagazine.com I first realized that I have severe synesthesia when I found out that most people couldn’t taste words. As I researched my condition more, I discovered that I am far more synesthetic than I thought. You see, I’d heard about musicians with synesthesia being able to “see” sound as colors, but I thought that the colors had to observable with their physical eyes as opposed to their mind’s eye. I'd think that words and sounds evoked feelings and images as well as color or textural associations.
I’ve always been far more into music than most people. Now I realize that one of the reasons is that, for me, music is an immersive experience, in no small part owed to the patterns and color arrangements that come up in my mind when I hear songs. Words make the colors really fly and form a more complete image as opposed to just fleeting colored patterns. This sound-to-color condition is known as chromesthesia. The strongest of my synesthesia powers is called lexical-gustatory synesthesia, which basically means that I can taste words. The same goes for my taste in poetry, for my preferences are based on an aesthetic that I could never really describe to people. Many times, my synesthetic experience of literary art determines how much I like it, although it’s obviously not a decision that I make consciously. The tastes and colors remain constant, although I often notice different dimensions to them at different times. Some words and sounds are more intense than others. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Barreling from Chinatown to Chinatown A balmy, persistent breeze in Manhattan blurred the July evening into an autumnal memory. I could’ve very well been in that same spot on Grand Street just a couple of seasons earlier. By now, I was a Chinatown bus regular, familiar with the various lines, their pros and cons, even their drivers. Snippets from different (mis)adventures melted into a slightly off-putting fondue.
Lying crumpled on my suitcase—green-gray, floral print, older than the bus I was about to board—I sat up and pressed my back against a greasy window. The sidewalk, blackened by ancient gum and general grime, was my temporary abode while I read a former professor’s novel. All I wanted to do was get back to Washington, but I placated myself with a page-turner in the meantime. The night had only just begun. I had already been curled up an hour when, before I knew it, I was throwing down my book and catching a baby. The child’s mother shouted at me. “What?” I shrieked. The baby glared at me. “What time do they open?” the woman shouted in a thick African accent I could not place. She was young, perhaps a couple of years older than me, not quite 30. Her braided hair was swept up into a ponytail. Ironic poindexter glasses rimmed her bushbaby eyes. She wore dress pants and a neat purple sweater. In any other situation, she might’ve been a respectful, well-mannered woman. But hell hath no fury like a frazzled mother. Now I had the chance to explain my current predicament. Unfortunately it was to someone about to face the same fate. The woman gaped as I said that the bus office was closed for dinner. The employees were on break. She didn’t believe me until we both looked through the large, glass windows and saw the five or so employees shoving rice and noodles in their mouths. While they ate presumably hot, delicious food, we shivered in the strange summer chill. Rows and rows of empty seats taunted us. But the chain locking the front door was as thick as my wrist and wrapped around the door handles three times. So the sidewalk it was. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Thinking About Others, Zombies, and Painful Truths By Kate Hickey QuailBellMagazine.com In the media these days, bigger is generally better. We want explosions. We want big budgets. We want the CGI to look like real life. And sometimes, because of that, we let narrative quality slide in favor of those technological features. There’s nothing wrong with that from time to time—I love a good, loud, CGI explosion as much as the next girl—but I frequently find myself craving shows that are smaller scale, quieter, and choose the story over the graphics. One such television program has recently caught my attention, and it’s called In The Flesh. Created and written by Dominic Mitchell for England’s BBC3, In The Flesh has become pretty popular in recent months, but it still has a long way to go before anyone would consider it a big part of the mainstream media.
In The Flesh takes place in the fictional village of Roarton, a small, rural community in England, and the tensions in the town are running high as the show opens. This is because the rehabilitated, medicated, Partially Deceased Syndrome Sufferers are being reintroduced into society for the first time since the Rising ended. In a nutshell – zombies are back in town. Humanity faced the zombie apocalypse and it survived. In The Flesh begins post-post-apocalypse. In The Flesh tackles some tough topics both beautifully and subtly. The people of this world have accepted the fantastic into their mundane lives, and what’s amazing is that the fantastic does not eliminate the ordinariness of these people, for better and for worse. The Partially-Deceased Syndrome serves as a metaphor for any kind of Other, anything that makes someone “weird” or “abnormal” or “wrong” according to what the society at large has deemed the standard. The PDS Sufferers in Roarton deal with slurs, segregation, and violence from the rest of the community. They wear make-up and contacts in order to hide their true faces, not only to keep themselves safe from attacks, but also because of the self-loathing that comes from being the Other in a community. |
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