sometimes i wonder how many versions of myself i’ve outgrown without even noticing. i look back at old photos and remember the thoughts i used to carry, the dreams i thought would save me. it’s strange how you can live inside yourself every day and still not realize you’re evolving. it’s only when you look back that you realize how far you’ve come, how many lives you’ve already lived in the same skin.
My liver’s perfect. My kidneys are divine. My glucose is… a little dramatic. We’re waiting on more tests. And I’m being very brave about it.
When You're Bored, You're Being Shaped.
Boredom isn’t the absence of stimulation. It’s a test. Of what you reach for. Of what you default to.
Do you grab your phone? Or a pen? Do you scroll? Or sit with your thoughts? Do you numb? Or build?
Because what you do when you're bored becomes who you are when you're not.
Boredom is a doorway. To creativity. To clarity. To the things you keep avoiding.
Stop escaping it.
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Sometimes I fantasize about disappearing.
Not dying.
Just logging off.
Getting a job no one cares about.
Growing tomatoes.
Writing poems in the margins of a notebook no one reads.
Not as a failure.
But as a kind of freedom.
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We live in a time that people are more inclined to obey an unlawful executive order than they are to follow a court order 🤦🏾♀️.
Dictators are created due to cruelty, cowardice, & compliance! IF THEIR ASSES will ignore the Supreme Court, we can definitely IGNORE HIM!
🚨BREAKING
RFK Jr is preparing to ban Pharmaceutical Ads on TV..
What are your thoughts?
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i think the hardest part about healing is realizing there’s no finish line. no big dramatic moment where everything feels suddenly better. it’s slower than that. it’s quieter. it’s choosing not to text them back. it’s making your bed on a heavy day. it’s being kind to yourself when your mind is cruel. healing is a thousand tiny victories no one else sees.
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My gosh…we passed 2,000 subscribers overnight. Either you’re all extremely loyal, or you’ve fully lost it. Either way—I’m honored.
Thank you for showing up. Thank you for following me here. Thank you for reminding The Woman that a formerly stray cancer-killing machine with strong opinions and questionable table manners still has pull.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get spiffed up for my checkup with Dr. Kenny—the only human I willingly allow to poke, prod, and praise me.
I’ll report back later…
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I announced this morning I’m leaving Webtoons. This is something I’ve been thinking about for months now and today is the day. You can read a bit about my journey and my decision why in this post (In true Webtoons style with all the art and vertical-scroll glory.)
I’m happy that I’ve found a place to park my stuff for a while. Maybe Subs…
You always own your intellectual property, mailing list, and subscriber payments. With full editorial control and no gatekeepers, you can do the work you most believe in.
If only Americans could be educated in this way!
The states run education, and some do a good job. Others do a bad job, actively discouraging children from thinking critically. They know that if the kids do think critically, the game is over and the incumbents will be gone with the wind. I’m looking at you, the Deep South.
I was in 12th grade in 1980 and my civics teacher also taught an English class called mass media, which was basically media literacy. Among the things that stand out most were that she asked us to look at ads thinking about what feelings The advertiser was trying to evoke in us, pity or insecurity or fear of missing out.
Forty-one years later I cannot help but do that when I see ads, and I've shown my kid. He's 13 and we homeschool for various good reasons, and I've always included discussing re…
Mary, if you laugh especially hard at this cartoon from THE INCREDIBLES Universe?
You probably have a Profoundly-Gifted son.... 😉
He's moderately gifted :) also autistic and with disabling levels of dyscalculia and dysgraphia. But I do love The Incredibles!
I'm glad to hear you're homeschooling him—I was moderately gifted growing up, too, and my Junior High put me in "Learning Disabilites" class because they didn't know what to do with me!
My ex-wife also has dyscalculia and dysgraphia—she found it annoying that I could do basic sums in my head, and forget asking her to read a map! We bought a Garmin when I started driving again, which we used until Google Maps on my iPhone got good enough that I could use that instead.
THE INCREDIBLES is great—THE …
Our local gifted program is really just about academic achievement, not how kids can learn very differently. And there's no way he wouldn't suffer in school. Three separate professionals have told us to keep homeschooling him. He has friends and is physically active and understands and though I have taught him to think independently as best I can, he still would vote the same way I do.
Mary, academics are somewhat important for Gifted students and should be available through the regular school curricula (AP classes, etc.). However any Gifted Support Program should be more. It should have all kinds of opportunities for students to explore their own exceptionalities, their uniquenesses, and help them find ways to make the most of them. Oh wait, shouldn't all students have those opportunities. We have become so obsessed with "academics" that we have neglected the really importan…
Oh, I know. I've been through a lot myself. Our local school pretty much just opens AP classes to kids a couple of years younger than they would normally. My own kid would still struggle with those, though. Being gifted and having high academic potential have overlap, but not entirely.
Mary, that is where a good Gifted Support program and well-trained special education professionals would have helped. In our high school, we had an actual math special education teacher, for example, teaching the Gifted students as well as regular ed and special education students who think and learn differently. She has tremendous success with those students because she can work with them from basic addition to calculus, depending on what they need. I know she is unique, but I also know things…
I agree.
That was the case with a bunch of the kids we volunteered with, too—one (who is now a history and gender studies professor) was put in a "special school" where they DEMANDED they handwrite everything, and couldn't hack that because their handwriting was so bad.
We finally managed to persuade their Mom to homeschool them instead—it probably helped that my ex hired them as an intern for a couple years until college....
My hands are damaged from two decades of medication-resistant rheumatoid disease and I struggle with writing legibly anymore. One of the best things that has happened for my kid was that when he was struggling to write neatly in a form, I pointed out that we both have disabilities that affect handwriting. Mine is because of my joints, physics essentially. His is because of the way his brain connects to the parts of his body used for writing. The look on his face was still overwhelming to me whe…
Some kids do better at home. Has a lot to do with personality and special gifts. I will say the hardest part about teaching in a public school is when the kids have no respect for teachers as their parents have no respect for education. Discipline is very limited in nature and having kids in the class with no regard for the fact that they are making it impossible for other kids to learn the lesson is misery. For everyone. Private schools can kick them out. Or parents have the option, as they di…
Meridee, I am sure some kids can do better at home particularly if their parent is an educator. Others, not so much. A really bright parent of one of my students decided to try home schooling and set everything up in her house. That lasted about 6 months. She and the family moved to another district where her child was accepted into a magnet school where she did quite well. It would be great if all public schools and districts had sufficient resources to offer children and their families, inter…
I mean, duh. Count me in.
Remember Judge Hannah Dugan, who Trump arrested for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant leave her courthouse?
Welp, she’s fighting back and stating that she cannot be prosecuted for her official judicial acts, and cites Trump’s own immunity ruling from SCOTUS which protects government officials for actions taken in the official line of duty.
This is the fire with fire we needed all along. Love it.
Ukraine is Europe…..I stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦
