“Just read something from the books we already have.”  This was the usual response to my entreaties to p-l-e-a-s-e buy me a new book when I was an adolescent.  As a child, getting new books was easy.  My mother was so thrilled that I loved to read t… Read full post »

There was a time, not so very long ago, when my friends and I would mount a “geek hunt” in the San Diego Convention Center every summer.  If we had the money, we pre-paid for a full pass and spent three glorious days amongst our own kind at the Comic Con.  … Read full post »

I recently finished reading Frank Indiana’s So It Was Cancer: A Love Story here on OS.  I found it months ago during a random search for essays about breast cancer.  It’s odd, but while I hate the idea that everyone’s cancer becomes their story, I still seek them out. … Read full post »

There are few phrases that are less tiresome than “everything happens for a reason.” Its a trite aphorism designed to make people resigned to tragedy and gives well-meaning people something to say about circumstances where there is currently no bright side.  At the same time, there i… Read full post »

With the exception perhaps of my corgi Cooper, there is nothing I love as unreservedly as ice cream.  It is the only thing in my life that has absolutely nothing negative associated with it, which is saying a lot for someone who has been clinically depressed for the majority of her… Read full post »

As someone working in education, the last thing I think people would expect of me is to be a fan of texting.  Like so many others in my profession I have stopped a lecture in its tracks to wait until the student texting in… Read full post »

My maternal grandparents came to the United States fleeing the pogroms against the Jews of Eastern Europe.   They were part of a flood of immigration that was viewed with horror by so-called “native” Americans (not Native Americans) and their coming was heralded with similar ref/… Read full post »

Every few weeks she comes to my home.  She arrives swathed in a world of possibilities.  Like all unexpected guests, she comes when I’m still in my pajamas, wearing no make-up, my hair a mess.  She also comes on days I feel particularly fat, or I wasn’t planning on going an… Read full post »

When I was a child, I dreamed of living in a house with a pool.  Instead, we lived in a converted duplex in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles.  Our neighborhood was made up of decaying working class housing that was rapidly vanishing in favor of high-density apartment buildings.  I nev… Read full post »