January 23, 2023 Dear Mr. Sedaris, My son, {The Baby}, came screeching into the world via an emergency c-section at 26 weeks- a two-pound potato whose vital organs needed lots of assistance to keep him alive. I met him for the first time four months later, when his birthmother invited me to visit the Neonatal …
I remember talking about atheism and agnosticism in my world religions class in high school. In my little conservative corner of West Texas, we didn’t spend much time talking about the godless heathens, but I remember the description of Clockmaker god, who designed the world, perfectly calibrated all of it’s gears and dials, and then …
Let me preface the beginning of this series with a few things: I’m gonna take weekends off for my “writing every day” goal in November. I can do this because I’m a grown ass woman and I want to. I want to explicitly acknowledge that I have AMAZING parents who did the best with what …
Last August, my little family met my parents in Estes Park. We have done this trip every couple of years since I was a kid. We stay in cabins and hike and explore and breathe in the fresh mountain air. COVID made things a little different, but we were just happy to escape Dallas for …
Well, today the Wise family said hello to a new bed and goodbye to two of The Baby’s teeth. A few months ago, we started the laborious process of getting a SleepSafe bed approved through The Baby’s insurance because his crib had become unsafe. He was able to stand up in it and when he …
The Baby turned five this week. It’s crazy. All of those five years tend to blur together. After all, time flies when you’re drowning in medical chaos (just kidding…kind of). On the night of his birthday, our dinner conversation centered around remembering all of his firsts- the first time he sat up, the first solid …
(You can listen to an audio version of this post here.) I went to David’s Bridal today to purchase a bridesmaid’s dress for a friend’s wedding next summer. She had a dress already picked out in the system so they pulled her profile up and I followed the very nice saleslady to the racks laden …
(I realize this is very lengthy so I have strategically placed pictures of smiling animals throughout the piece so that you can mark your place if you need to take a break and come back to it. At my sister’s suggestion, I’ve also made an audio version of this blog. You can download/stream it by …
I grew up in West Texas- land of wide-open spaces, sky high teen pregnancy rates, and a colorblind racial ideology that masks racism instead of confronting it. In colorblind ideology, it is impolite to talk about someone’s race. I remember hearing a story about a friend who was trying to tell her son which store …
I just got back from San Francisco. I went to (hides face) a Christian conference. I found myself hesitant to tell people that it was a Christian conference because of the connotations of that. My sense is that many Christian conferences are lame attempts at pep rallies for God, the adult version of church camp, …
“What was I thinking?” I thought as I stared forlornly into the mirror. I should have known better than to impulsively stop at the hair salon directly adjacent to the Tom Thumb, still clutching my bag of avocados. I was hoping for a cute haircut before I left on my 10th anniversary weekend trip. Instead, …
I was a mere 21 years old when I got married. My uncle officiated our wedding. Before the wedding, my then-fiancee, now-husband, Alex, and I drove down to Corpus to do some premarital counseling sessions and stay with my aunt and uncle. After one of these sessions, Alex and I got ready to leave and …
I went to a vigil in Balch Springs for Jordan Edwards last week. It was everything you would want a vigil to be- beautiful and sad and moving and comforting. Like most, I was horrified by Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice’s deaths. I have been deeply affected before by deaths caused by police brutality, but …
I’ve been in Adult ESL for 11 years now. (That’s English as a Second Language, not Extra Sensory Perception, as I sometimes get.) I started as the front line office person for a bustling non-profit that had set up shop in the middle of the highest densely populated area of Dallas, right where all the … Continue reading
We got a Christmas tree last year. Up to that point, I had avoided having a tree by using a cloth tree that I sewed that hangs on the wall. After 6 years, the Kid finally convinced me that we needed like a tree tree and not something that I whipped up on my cheap … Continue reading
Many of you may know that school boards across America are being inundated with outraged parents that their children have access to a book that shows a picture of a child with two mommies (or whatever the fuck). Women are screaming at school board members about Critical Race Theory without knowing what it even really … Continue reading
In March 2020, the world stopped. Literally. I kept trying to explain to The Kid that this was a historical event- something he would tell his grandkids about- but I don’t know that he believed me. There was so much fear in those early days. Months later, I saw a video on instagram that depicted … Continue reading
In my Kinesio class in college, there was a yoga portion and a classroom portion. Apparently, yoga is very popular among defensive linemen so I’d do my planks next to the Fightin’ Texas Aggies’ defensive tackle, who were surprisingly quite flexible. Although I’d been in Texas public schools my entire life, I found the classroom … Continue reading
Alex and I were both virgins when we got married. In a fact that will surprise no one, I had never even come close to having sex. I made one boyfriend wait almost a year before kissing him and he still asked me to marry him (this was the fiancee before Alex if you’re trying … Continue reading
TW: sexual assault In high school, there was a foreign exchange student from Hong Kong. Cute, little ole’ racist me was horrified that Joe Li didn’t have flip-flops (don’t all Asians wear flip flops, hyuck hyuck?) so I bought him a pair. Joe Li fell instantly and madly in love with this strange white girl … Continue reading
I got my very first boyfriend when I was in 7th grade. He was in 6th grade which makes me an accidental cougar (reowr). The dating terminology at the time was “going out” so when I told my parents that James** and I were “going out” and my dad said, “Going where?”, then I rolled … Continue reading
So, the Baby got his g-tube placed a few months ago. As a surgery, it was pretty straightforward. He came home with the site covered in gauze so we couldn’t even see any of the…recovery process. It took a few weeks for him to get back to normal. In short…it’s been awesome. He’s still eating … Continue reading
Memoirist David Sedaris is one of the few authors who makes me laugh out loud. I aspire to be as funny a writer as he is. I think perhaps I appreciate his appreciation for life’s small bizarre moments and how he can draw them together into a devastatingly beautiful conclusion. Several years ago, while reading … Continue reading
welderbeth 