When I went to pick my kids up from art today, there was purple paint everywhere.  They were covered in what looked like Barney beside a hand grenade– and the art teacher was, too.  Purple on her face, blood red in her cheeks, and thick black smoke coming out of her ears.
And I did not [...]

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I remember when I worked in Oxford (back in da day).  I was a blubbering-first-year-teacher-mess the biggest part of the time.  The sweet lady at Handy Andy even started giving me free banana pudding by sometime in late September– I mean, things are getting ugly when you’re going to a hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint to pig [...]

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She is absent again today.
No eager hand raised at table one.  No sweet, patient spirit to work with Quinn at table two.  No look-at-these-new-earrings-I-got greeting at the door this morning.
Because she isn’t here.
She’s at home with her baby sister.  Her brother is there, too.   “He just turned four!” she told me one day last [...]

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I just finished reading House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.  It’s been on my to-read list forever and I finally scratched out some time to make it happen.  It didn’t take much; the book is a collection of short stories, some of which aren’t even a full page long.
The stories were easy to read [...]

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Once I ran away and found one million songs.
Of hurts and joys and memories
of loves who’ve come and gone.
Mountains in the mist
and rivers running free.
Crashing waves and ebbing tides
and trails that climb on endlessly.
Open pastures, fields of green,
shifting sands, and tinkling streams.
All the sights and sounds that play
in the songs I found when I ran [...]

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To breathe deeply and freely.
To reconnect with friends.
To seek out solitude.
To run and read and write.
To pick up pennies in parking lots.
To use only Papermate Classic Mirado pencils– the ones with the red stripe on the eraser.
To never resolve to give up Diet Coke again.
To sleep in on Saturdays.
To enjoy movies and music and more [...]

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I used to be really good with transitions.  I just rolled right through them without checking up.
From English to Spanish and back again.  From sidewalk runs to trails.  From oceans to rivers to creeks out by the barn.  From country to country, continent to continent.  From one-bedroom apartments to log cabins to tents in the [...]

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I think I left the womb a dreamer and I haven’t let up since.
When I was too little to remember my age, I dreamed that I could live off of chocolate milk alone.  When I was in kindergarten, I dreamed that Robin and I would be dancers on the Vaudeville stage.  At the ripe old [...]

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Running has always been a getaway of sorts for me, my exercise of choice.  A routine that requires nothing more than a decent pair of tennis shoes and a ponytail holder.
Cheaper than a gym membership.  More skin covered than swimming laps.  Less annoying than “Five more, ladies, feel it burn!”.
I run for all of those [...]

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I feel it.  That river of sweat rolling down my spine, veering just to the left before it cascades over my meaty waist line.  Nice.
That guy with the weird voice– the one on the radio– says it’s 102 degrees outside today and I believe him.
There’s another river in the making.  This one’s starting from my [...]

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