Most people who know me even a little would doubt that I know or care much about baseball. As a child I needed glasses long before anyone knew I did, so no matter how hard I swung a bat or stretched for a ball, it was always just beyond my reach because I could not…
When my late husband died and his body was removed from the house, I was suddenly very much alone. Dear friends were at hand, but there was no one to go to bed with and sob, no one to wake up with and sob. So when I awoke on December 25, 2015 a widower, I…
As my semester is winding down, I am mentally reviewing the class that I taught this semester. It is loads more fun to review my lecture notes, slides, and activities than to read papers or prepare for the final. I have been teaching for 47 years; I think I would like to make it to…
The casual observer would find me a bit odd when it comes to organization. For example, one could notice that my computer files are pretty orderly, but my emails are a mess. I have very organized closets, and fairly well organized file drawers, but my desk top is a disaster zone. Cufflinks that I wear…
For a while now I have been promising some friends that I would construct a hat that included a sort of wing or tag off to one side, a la Minnie Pearl. I envision this chapeau to be less flashy than La Pearl’s but following the same premise. The hat would have an appendage that…
It has become incredibly easy for me not to decide on things over the past 15 years. If you go to any website that addresses issues related to multiple sclerosis, you have to go way down on the list of issues to find anything about this problem, if you find it there at all. When…
Taking trains to get places is very instructive. The traveler gets to see firsthand decisions that were made, are being made, or are yet to be made at a pace and from a perspective that one doesn’t get while driving or walking. At the wheel of a car, one must pay attention. From the train,…
Communities emerge when people participate in common practices, depend on one another, make decisions together… For the past two weeks I have been posting about some of our common practices and depending on one another. I have noticed along the way that more often than not I draft my posts beginning with the antithesis of…
Especially during election season, it seems the use of the phrase social contract gets a boost in frequency. It is like watching 1,400 sales of Prince’s albums in the day before his death soar to .75 million the day after. One party is much more likely to use the expression, the other preferring words like…
Yesterday I told Albert that I have been worried about him. Most Wednesdays I see him in Chicago on the bridge at Adams between Wacker and Canal at 2:45 PM. But for the past two weeks he has been absent. Last week I was a bit early for my train, so I hung out for…
Creating Community for Everyone 