Strangers on the Bus
The bus rumbles on through the blue night, Full of strangers waiting to be home. I search their faces with a tender curiosity Pretending I can read their minds and hearts.
In Defense of Omnivorism and Human-centrism
Recently my beautiful roommate Gabby made some remark about wishing humans would die so that animals could live in happiness. Not only that, but my dear friend Brent has started a fashionable trend of referring to any dish that contains meat as, “murder soup,” “murder pie,” etc. It’s enough to make an omnivore like myself…
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Defying Tomorrow
People will break your heart, But what can you do about it? Take my heart and turn it into a friggin’ omelette Break my heart over and over, I don’t care. The chicken can always lay another egg.
We Need a Men’s Liberation Movement
My friend Kara wore a shirt one day that said, “This is What a Feminist Looks Like,”and she was having fun giving people double takes. Apparently when people saw her shirt in the elevator they would look her over and make funny faces. She enjoyed the consternation it provoked among random passers-by. But why, I…
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Main Street
“Mayor Robert Duffy One City Lecture Series:” Downtown! With exquisite politeness I was ushered to the coat room and presented with refreshments. Was it just me, or was a choir of angels blowing a heavenly fanfare over that FOOD? There were strawberry cream puffs shaped like swans, chocolate cream squares, miniature fruit tarts with…
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Born Into Poverty
Lots of young mothers with babies ride the buses in Rochester. It was different in San Francisco. In SF, people from all walks of life would ride the bus; everyone from the crazy homeless man to the business executive in a crisp suit. But in Rochester, you can tell that the people who ride the…
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Eating Hamburgers in a World Without Answers
A lot of the time when we buy something, our motive is to recapture a certain feeling. An expensive dress to feel beautiful, a fancy computer to feel exciting and new, or even a snuggly comforter to feel protected and loved. Food in particular is good at invoking memories. A Frenchman once wrote a 4,211…
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Conversations Overheard on the Bus
This Sunday a simple errand took all afternoon because I had to bike six miles (each way) through the wilderness to accomplish it. I enjoyed the leafy autumn part of the wilderness, with little squirrels and bunnies frolicking on either side. It was the man-made wilderness that got to me— an endless, concrete, suburban desolation,…
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Some Thoughts On Teenage Pregnancy
A residential services charity gives teenage moms and pregnant teenagers a place to live. “We give the girls a place to live where no one will judge them,” the woman began her spiel to me and my Americorps friends. But then she went on, “Sometimes the girls come back to us two, three times, each…
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Right Next Door
Some first impressions of Rochester NY, my new home. Home to Xerox and Kodak, Rochester used to be called Smugtown, USA, due to the wealth brought by industry and the complacency of its bourgeoise residents. But Kodak was outpaced by the digital camera, the wealthy fled to the suburbs, and the paint is peeling off…
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