Tales From The Fragile Balancing Act

Amy, First off, I should mention that since President Barrack Obama won his second election, and after doing this way too much, I’ve avoided engaging in these types of back-n-forths.   Your comment is categorized under “these types” because everything you’ve expressed here I disagree with on such a fundamental level that it is clear to me that nothing I say will be changing any of your viewpoints.   That being said, since we’ve been friends since you were “serendipitously seated next to me in Mrs Brewers 6 th grade class” and likely will be still when we are grandparents, I find it entirely worthwhile to attempt to get you to stand in my shoes and see the world as I do, even if only for a brief moment.   So please feel free to respond, and know that I will read with an open mind, but for me this is a one-and done “I'd like to think he did that when he was young, stupid & didn't know any better.” Of course you would “like to think” this, but I like to build ...

  Oh, if only there were a shred of evidence that the Patriots intentionally deflated some balls during a game they would’ve won easily even if boulders were substituted for balls.  If there were only actual evidence of wrongdoing ( wrongdoing , mind you, that multiple quarterbacks and players have, just this week, confessed to taking part in stating that this is the unspoken league “norm”).  If we had this evidence then, surely, we just might be allowed to see this whole story get buried.  Isn’t that how it works?    In 2011, before shooting himself in the chest Andre Waters wrote the words, "Please, see that my brain is given to the NFL's brain bank." Though no note was found, a year later when Junior Seau ended his life with a shotgun blast to the chest, it doesn’t seem a stretch to assume he, too, was preserving this crucial piece of evidence for us all to learn from.   And learn we did.   This evidence, when looked at alongside ...

Oh, to occupy that head of yours if only for a moment or two.  How nice it must be to have no worries  no urgency. To sprint up  thirteen steps only to yell  down immediately,  “Does anyone know why  I am  up here?”  To never have to worry about being on time someone takes care of that for you. Oh, and the bills:  Quick! Who gives us electricity? Yeah...  didn't think so. To be the one playing on the floor,  making them laugh  when it’s that time to leave while I make sure they have  food, clothes, bibs… an endless                   checklist so long, check                                    detailed, check                                       ...

Dylan’s January Fort  On Peter’s Hill, a few hundred homes nestled, slender skyward reaching, blanketed in oppressive white.  Silence save imagined crackling from wood stoves. Behind 30 Ashfield in the small patch of land stands our creation now encrusted in sharp stone shoals, burning ice.  Its wonder still steadily glows. A week earlier exhausted from life  and shoveling, surprised  myself  starting the pile.  I smelled  salty sand, remembering sitting  with cousins as we dug seeking China. Breaking the silence scattered  snow offers came hurried,  excited footsteps,               descending                                 sol-                                     fege. ...

    Copley Square Memorial   (In their Sneakers) They ran for charities, for fun, for sons who could not, or just to defiantly show that they could. Yes, they ran. They ran so, so fast from those blasts that surpassed worst visions of fear burned so loud that even the finest of sneakers  in town could not outrun all those horrible sounds. So they stopped in their tracks and ran back. Then they ran, taking orders, and messages (hope) holding hands and back tears standing strong. Always running. Defiant. Now knowing they could.   That they would. Stay strong. Then they ran back that same path past the 26th mile before walking then trudging then still. Silent, they hung up their shoes, and Mary hung her head, and Old Glory hung between worlds. Hushed. For a long, long while. They'll run again, though. And like never before. New sneakers, new legs, new lives. ...

SPOILER ALERT!!!  This is not a review and if you have not read this book (you really should btw) the following will entirely ruin the novel for you. So I was assigned this book for a course - truly enjoyed the read and pretty much accepted what I was told by the narrator and walked away satisfied for the most part. During the following class meeting, there was a heated debate concerning who were the actual parents of young Adrian.  Knowing I had a final paper to write on the novel (or novella, apparently there's a heated debate over this) I thought it wise to give the book a second read. For some reason I read it backwards ten-page chunks at a time.  If you never have done this I highly recommend.  Taken out of the context of the plot, passages read entirely differently.  Anyway, without looking for it I came upon a curious theory which soon snowballed leading to more and more unexpected and shocking discoveries.  For a few days there I became ...