The idea of reappropriation isn’t a new one. The process of turning negative words, symbols, or ideas into positive parts of our own identity – was used for social justice movements long before hipsters thought that being ironic was cool. Whether...
It was a night of early spring, The winter-sleep was scarcely broken; Around us shadows and the wind Listened for what was never spoken. Though half a score of years are gone, Spring comes as sharply now as then— But if we had it all to do It would...
I am much less autistic now, compared to when I was young. I remember some behaviors like picking carpet fuzz and watching spinning plates for hours. I didn't want to be touched. I couldn't shut out background noise. I didn't talk until I was about 4...
Jude leaped out of arm's reach, and walked along the trackway weeping--not from the pain, though that was keen enough; not from the perception of the flaw in the terrestrial scheme, by which what was good for God's birds was bad for God's gardener; b...
We bought a car years later, and they so generously offered us some of their crappy Bar-B-Que sauce,FREE for their buyers. We looked at it and thought, "This is nowhere as good as the giant box of chocolates and huge bouquet of flowers we got SPECIAL...
I don't mind being pale. In high school, it seemed like everybody cared about being tan all year round, but I haven't really thought about it since then. I don't go to a tanning bed, and I get bored when I lay out. I put sunscreen on when I'm in the ...
Fly (poem from the book Blue Bridge) Delicate, / butterfly winged, / we vainly push against the sky, / each trying to find our place. Yes, we are going to die, / let's not beat about the bush. / Maybe today, maybe tomorrow, / maybe even years from no...
Aw, fudge,' floated down to me, as a couple of golden eyes peered over a third-floor window ledge. 'You're a freaking dhampir. Why are you reading Tolkien?' I shrugged, then had to dodge the potted geranium he threw at me. 'After five hundred years, ...
I've been doing acting since I was 6 years old, and I don't know how to do anything besides act and sing. Back in the day, you had to do it all - you had to sing, dance, and act. I'm from the old school where that is what I was trained to do, and tha...
One thing I’d realized in the last year was that there were some things no one could give you permission to do. All the same, it didn’t mean you couldn’t or shouldn’t do them— particularly when it came to the big things, like saving the wor...
Everything in this world was so new, so wonderful and strange--like things in my old world, but better []For sixteen years my soul had been drawn towards this place, this alien homeland, toward its rainbow sunrises and whispering trees" Breena Bitter...
Excerpt from Winning Streak, Las Vegas Sinners Book 3, coming later this year: Tonight’s ensemble was typical Madden. Dark and faded but expensive jeans, a fitted, black Vegas is For Lovers t-shirt and some Doc Martin boots. Okay, those were a litt...
We got rich by violating one of the central tenets of economics: thou shall not sell off your capital and call it income. And yet over the past 40 years we have clear-cut the forests, fished rivers and oceans to the brink of extinction and siphoned o...
Moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifted person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other...
Felix Abt prefers to stay apolitical and impartial when sharing his thoughts and memories of the seven-year sojourn. From the book we can see that he loves Korea and cares about its people. In his assessments of North Korea's past and present the aut...
Several people, not just reviewers, took me to task for writing about what they called the working classes - something I've been doing for 40 years. I thought that was contemptible - what do they want to do, ghettoize the working class as a subject? ...
I want you back here now. I want you next to me now. I cannot believe that my family, your brother, all our friends, and an entire police force can't keep tabs on one twenty-six year old graphic designer who thinks he's fuckin' Batman. --Detective Sa...
Lobbing hand grenades on the bride of Christ takes zero talent or effort. I also think this really ticks God off. My five-year-old child complains and whines when things aren't the way she wants them, but courageous men and women roll up their sleeve...
I got the acting bug back because I felt like all of a sudden maybe after all these years, maybe I might have something to offer again. I walked away from it after 'Signs' because I just felt I was a bit stale and it wasn't ringing my bells, so I foc...
I have a type of bipolar that swings up and down all day long. There are significant mood swings within a day, within a week, within a month. I go through at least four major episodes a year. That's really the definition of bipolar rapid cycle. But I...
Years ago, I picked up figure skating. How hard could spins and jumps be, I thought? It's just applied Newtonian physics. After repeatedly falling on my rear end, I realized it was harder than I thought. But it had an upside. That is how I met my wif...