Color Me, Don’t Color Me

The year is 1991. Kids really do wear their hair in aqua-net-encased creations of spiked mullets and towering bangs (the grunge wave has not yet reached our suburban landscape). My personal soundtrack consists of anything REM, the Bryan Adams’ single “Everything I Do”, and Disney’s Little Mermaid soundtrack. I think I am turning out to […]

Speak the Truth, Even if Your Voice Shakes

The following TED talk resonates with me in so many ways; some of which I will explain below. In the video, Ash Beckham talks about the difficulty of coming out of the closet. When you hear ‘coming out’, you may think it only applies to gay people, but there are many kinds of closets and […]

Tears for Ears

Today I had planned to write a post about the process of getting fitted for a hearing aid. My “bad” ear is finally healthy enough that my doctor said I can try a hearing aid. My appointment with the audiologist was only supposed to be an hour long. I told my boss I’d be in […]

Happy Birthday to my Mommy

Today is my Mom’s birthday. Mom and I go way back. As her firstborn, I got to break her in to the whole motherhood thing. This arrangement worked out pretty well for me. (I’m just a little bit spoiled.) For her, I may have raised her blood pressure a bit but overall I think what […]

Ugly

I told my sister that if she wanted to name her daughter Isabella, she’d better be sure she would be pretty. You can’t have an ugly girl named Isabella. Yeah, or else the boys will say things like, “Bella… not!” My co-workers laugh. I smile awkwardly, hoping they cannot sense the lurch in my stomach […]

Thoughts on Bullying, Part 1.

Every Friday morning, NPR airs a short segment called Story Corps. I often catch it on my way to work. Last week, it was a story told by a father whose 14-year-old son committed suicide after being bullied relentlessly. In recent years, there have been a lot of stories of kids killing themselves after being bullied. My heart […]

Stalling

Fear not, dear blog-readers. I have not abandoned you. I’ve been otherwise occupied, and admittedly I am stalling a little. There are things I want to write about that are not really EEC-related and I’m having an internal debate about whether it’s a good idea to expand the scope of this blog to just being […]

Wherein I Air More of My Flaws

I’d really like to be one of those people who sends a Christmas card to everyone I’ve ever known. I love sending handwritten notes to people and I love making cards. This year was pretty much an epic fail as far as that goes, thanks to chronic procrastination, an inability to say “no” to anything, […]

Keeping Things In Perspective

It’s hard to describe the feeling of awe that a clear, dark, starry, starry sky can induce. Looking up at those glittering gems that have blanketed the night for longer than humans have existed is a surefire way to put your own life in perspective.

Swimming with Suzanne

Water. How I have always loved water. Whether it be in a bath tub or a swimming pool, I want to be in it. Swimming allowed me to be weightless and graceful, while on land I was clumsy and awkward. Being in the pool was like being in another world – one where I never […]