Bread and Circuses

      The elder generations of my family love a remote location. My grandparents Tierney relocated from Denver to North Platte, Nebraska when I was in junior high school. My aunt and uncle followed them out there, as did my mother, some years later. My dad bought a house on some land in tiny Weldona, Colorado a few years back. Apparently, something in our DNA clicks over at some point, and we all decide that we need to move somewhere that has absolutely dire winters, and also takes forever to get to. The winters last eight months and there's nothing to keep the snow from drifting into seven foot piles? Awesome! It's at least two hours to a major airport? Perfect!      All of this is to say I went to visit my family in their new digs (southeastern Iowa) last weekend. And from the moment I landed, I could not figure out my cardinal directions, and therefore spent three days basically lost amongst the rivers, streams, and corn fields of Iowa. My people did wel...

       T.S. Eliot once wrote that "April is the cruelest month..." Oh, Thomas Stearns. You obviously never lived through an August in the south. If you had, you'd know that August is the cruelest month. Hotter and more humid than a lobster pot, and the best part? You can't even be truly excited that it is nearly September, because guess what? September is just second August. It's just another 30 days of the same hot, humid weather.      Not that you'd know that if you went into any clothing store. It's 90+ degrees and you walk into Belk and praise the fact that the air conditioning is set at "ice cold". And then they want you to look at all the beautiful sweaters. Be serious, y'all. I'm not going to need a sweater for another two months (maybe three). I came in here because if one more scrap of fabric touches too much of my skin, I might combust. I need shorts. I need further floaty items in linen.       A ll you have for me are acr...

       I woke up this morning, fully intending to write about Steven Spielberg's newest movie, Disclosure Day. Then I checked the news, and found out that Lindsey Graham died overnight. So we're going to take a quick current events detour, and then we'll get to the Spielberg of it all.      Lindsey Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina became a congressman in 1993, when I was 14 years old. When Strom Thurmond died in 2003, Graham took his seat in the senate. For those of you who are too young to know who Strom Thurmond was, you can learn more about him here . Those were some pretty huge, hateful shoes to fill. And, looking back, I think we can safely say that Graham tried his best.        A man with essentially no moral compass, in December 2015, he said "y ou know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell. He’s a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot. He doesn’t represent my party. He do...

     We need to be worried, y'all. And the reason we need to be worried is twofold: The Supreme Court shouldn't have a split decision on a very basic Constitutional question; and  The Constitution of the United States was never meant to be a static document.      On the first point, it very simply doesn't matter what Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito or Neil Gorsuch feels  about birthright citizenship. The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was very specifically drafted and adopted on July 9, 1868. A 91 page temper tantrum does not negate that two thirds of the Congress ratified this specific amendment. And the job of the Supreme Court is to decide "....Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution..." I guess we have to say the loud part out loud right now, but the 14th Amendment of the Constitution says this:  Persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of ...

       I don't know, y'all. It's a billion degrees outside, and there is  no  breeze. This is my 21st summer in the deep south, so it's not like I don't know what to expect. It's going to be hot and humid and uncomfortable. I'm never going to be completely dry. My hair doubles in volume every five minutes I'm outside until I start looking like Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons. So I wear natural fibers in very loose configurations, and try not to worry about how sweaty I look constantly. I drink all the water I can get my hands on.        At least, that's how I used to cope. This summer is a completely different beast, because I'm deep into perimenopause now. I have hot flashes that make me feel like I'm a human volcano. I haven't had a good night's sleep in months. My new baseline is 'uncomfortable and cranky.' Add in a typical summer in the south, and I'm wandering around feeling vaguely homicidal all the time.       L...

                I don't know if she's a mom. She for sure didn't know that I am not a mom. I can understand the instinct to make sure that any potential mom be included in the recognition of Mother's Day. For me, however, it felt like someone confused me for a military veteran. The stolen valor of it all made me cringe inside.       Being a mom is one of the hardest things anyone can do. The thought of being responsible for the complete well being of another human? That is an enormous burden for anyone to take on. I have nothing but respect for anyone who chooses to be a mother. In our world today, it is a thankless task (Hallmark holidays aside).        On this Mother's Day, I'm thinking about how we could make motherhood less burdensome and more rewarding for moms. Perhaps, instead of everyone panic buying a weird assortment of "gifts" (oh, yeah, I saw y'all at the store yesterday), we could...