Now that the "advent" series is over and the new year is in full effect, I'm moving on to putting plans in motion. I'm not big on making resolutions as I feel those have been, at least for me, a fast track to frustration when I fail to meet them. But my "plans" could...
Commencement: a beginning or start. I thought maybe "commencement" would be too pompous a word to use for this, the last of the advent, which is not an advent day at all but the actual New Year itself. Yet, that kind of pomposity is exactly what I think the start of a...
Anticipation: the action of anticipating something; expectation or prediction. Tonight, I am going to allow myself some unrestrained anticipation for the new year. Things might go wrong and I'm sure terrible events will continue to happen, but where there is a future,...
Persistence: firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition. I think the idea for today's theme really has roots deep in 2016 -- even though it has not been a particularly tragic year for me personally (I've survived much,...
Intention: a thing intended; an aim or plan. I felt that determination comes before intention, because without the emotion of determination we won't make the intellectual choice of intention. Today I spent time hammering out my plans, trying to make them reasonable...
This guy, he's not even subtle. I actually went on one date with this dude -- we met on FSU campus back when I was in grad school and working at the Senator Pepper Archives, so about 2012 or so. It was one of those dates where the guy seems "nice" and I'm terrible at...
It has been engraved on my soul to save household documents by parents whose deaths bequeathed to me their tax returns from the 1960s. I treasure those documents, because they contain my parents' lives in very factual ways (income, taxes) and very sentimental ways...
An interesting thought exchange with ClassicalSass about "why post/publish your writing?" led me back around to the idea of being a writer vs. being a storyteller. Yes, of course, there is critical overlap there. I'm not talking about hard definitions, or the...
Even now, in a decent job that I've held steadily for several years, I "travel light" -- these days, there is no guarantee that you'll get time to pack your things before you're pitched out the door. It's no different in a public university than it was working for...