Maybe, just maybe, Journalism school was a good idea after all. Almost a decade later, I'm still endlessly distracted by words, ideas and phrasings of the imagination.
Older Blogs:
The Original Blog
On my long-abandoned starter blog find all the good things that got me into blogging - politics, figuring out Ohio, clever distractions, links, recipes, holiday moments and more...
Meet Warrior Monkey
If I ever get back to personal blogging, it will be here. I conceived this space, and my trusty warrior muse, like the tattered notebooks, saved bar napkins and assorted detritus of memory I've collected over the years. I'm wanted to be done "publishing" and onto thinking out loud. Here, fiction, profiles of people I admire, pseudo philosophical blurs and memories hold sway.
Other Articles:
Rouse Mag
Question This: A Guide For Front-Row Undecideds
You Undecideds – particularly if you happen to be optimally placed in a coveted swing state – have a unique opportunity to create a buzz with provocative inquiries at these town hall spectacles. No idea what to ask? Polisnarking has you covered with 20 hard-hitting questions guaranteed to elicit a solid answer or a telling deflection from this year’s candidates. Get your cheat sheet ready...
The Black Table
18,000 and Rising: Missy Nelson, Skydiver
....And its founder, Roger Nelson, trusted his teaching technique so much that his daughter made her first jump at age 5. Age 5! That's Missy. She's been climbing mountains, skydiving and hang-gliding since most of us were considering coloring, cutting and/or pasting. And, at 27, she's an accomplished skydiver with several gold medals and world records to her name...
Detouring.net
Legal Brigade
News was somehow lost in the holiday. Off wrapping gifts, lighting candles, indulging in every manner of savory and sweet, we weren’t watching the newspapers or checking in with college friends. A month later, the emails and phone calls crashed in. Frank died on Christmas Eve. A memorial service is scheduled for February 6. Can you be there?
Rouse Mag
In Defense of Terrorism
The conflict in Chechyna has resulted in over a decade of violence, human rights abuse, and poverty. Grozny has been razed. Across the country, private houses are in ruins and the economic and sanitary infrastructures are largely destroyed. Thousands of innocent civilians have been killed and more are missing.The small groups of rebels still fighting have been labeled terrorists...
Rouse Mag
The Religion Gap
Here’s an easier one: Is your Sunday morning spent singing in a choir or just the shower? Do you golf and brunch or exclaim hallelujahs? Your answer to that question will more accurately predict your vote this November than any of the long-favored demographic clues – like gender, age, race, or income level.
Rouse Mag
On Political Spousing
A half-smile frozen on her face, Dina McGreevey occasionally reached for her husband’s hand during his coming out speech. Her husband of nearly four years, Patrick McGreevey, the governor of New Jersey, looked out at the assembled audience and rattled off a series of potentially marriage-ending confessions: he is gay, he had an extramarital affair with a man, and the consequences of his actions leave him unable to govern...
Rouse Mag
The Wisdom of Blakely
Blakely’s victory was short-lived. He was discharged from his sentence, but was immediately charged with hiring a jailhouse snitch to murder his wife (a crime committed while his original case was on appeal). Others, though, have had more luck on Blakely’s long and frayed coattails...
Rouse Mag
Rebuke in a Red Truck
On that sidewalk, in the Clintonville neighborhood, a handsome man in an OSA t-shirt leaned against a phone poll, occasionally blowing a mammoth carved-wood horn, its echo a deep rallying call. With his squared, wire-framed glasses, tanned skin and kind face, he looked like a more causal participant, the source maybe of a biting comment or two. Instead, his voice has that quiet cadence of a monk’s and underneath is a hint of the fervor of a minister. He speaks of killing centers and lost souls. He is here to save us.
Rouse Mag
Agenda in a Bottle
I propose an alternative, a legislative agenda that will stir progressive hearts and inspire those not willing to believe that we’re too entrenched in this mess to fix it. A government that can declare unprovoked war in weeks can rethink its course in four years. John Edwards, listen up – this is the voice of your people.
Knot Magazine
Finding Home Series: Wanderer
Ah, I admit, I occasionally jones for college and coffee shops and those inane yet inspiring conversations where we "discover" the well-trod trials of human experience. I enjoy the pseudo intellectual blur.
Knot Magazine
Raising Dad, Part 2
He'd start off with some line about living the lonely life of a bachelor, alternately bemoaning and celebrating his diet of canned vegetables, Doritos and the occasional Marie Callendar frozen treat. But, we knew better. As a married man, he watched sitcoms and weeded the garden. As a bachelor, well, his dance card was full.
Knot Magazine
Raising Dad, Part 1
Dad had lashed a chain to the tiny trailer hitch on his petite Japanese pick-up truck. The chain's noose had a stranglehold on some of my mother's prized azaleas and rhododendrons. He was gunning the engine to wrench them from the flowerbeds. After years of gardening, our newly divorced Dad was going low-maintenance with a little un-gardening therapy.
Knot Magazine
Did he lie? Does it matter?
Ok, sure that's the kind of selective history written just for the purpose of playing politics. But nevermind the complex telling of the interceding years or even the fleshy details for the moment. On this single issue, there are questions enough -- did Kerry lie about the atrocities committed by soldiers in Vietnam? Does it matter?
Knot Magazine
The Thin Pink Line
This is not my story. In fact, the details came from the long, frustrated tellings of four young women. But, in another way, this story in entirely my own as it is every woman's story.
Knot Magazine
Archetypes of the Office Space
My fellow travelers were once wandering souls dressed in torn t-shirts and flannel overthings, with contrarian politics and "take on the world" attitudes. They now call me from their combination PDA-cell phones, darting off to a business meeting, a graduate class, a courtroom.
Knot Magazine
Hunting Veeps
The speculation is, of course, legion. Kerry has been reported to be seriously considering as many as ten possible candidates -- from the safe to the unlikely to the truly inspired. Although the pundits have been wrong every season since the Reagan-Ford negotiations broke down (giving way to the unexpected Reagan-Bush ticket), it’s difficult to resist at least a guess or two.
Knot Magazine
Book Review: Z.Z. Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewere
Most are young women and all are struggling with the frustration of expectations -- theirs or someone else's. From the snatching hands of sexual abuse to the nasty jibes of thoughtless children to failing to reach the unachievable demands of self-involved parents, Packer's poetic telling hints at the vagueness of "right" and the inadequacy of reaction.
Knot Magazine
Voting from the Bike Lane
I learned the rules of the road trailing the back tire of a true urban cyclist. I can safely ride on skinny city streets with side mirrors ticking by inches from my elbows (and sometimes even grazing them). I can merge and know when to be aggressive and when to yield. I can kick hard off the stop lights so that my auto-ed brethren don’t miss the turn signal.
Knot Magazine
Toward a More Civil Union
Civil unions are about more than gay rights. They could protect the interests of unmarried couples of all types by de-emphasizing the role of romantic love, religion and traditional relationships in the business of building a life together. The last census estimated a little over half a million co-habitating gay and lesbian couples. The same census counted 5.5 million straight ones. This isn't just a "gay" issue.
Leigh, a co-worker shared your Advergirl blog with me, and I'm hooked. From it, I found this blog, and I'm more inspired by your successes than I've been by those of many of my peers. I'm fighting my way down a similar career path: J-school, agency, freelance and all, and I'd love to read some of your articles above. The last articles' links are dead- would you mind contacting the publishers to try to renew them?
-Miranda
Posted by: Miranda | June 29, 2008 at 11:07 PM