As I Was Saying…

Chatter, memories and rants. Please, don't stop me if you've heard this one before.





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Confessions from the new New Frontier

“What’re ya havin’ baby?”

Sunday, February 19, 2012 - 5:48 pm - It’s only 9:30 am, but today is already one of those days when I find it easy to love New York because of how often mundane becomes profound here. I got a free coffee from the bodega for being “a teacher who is a very important woman.” Nice. Then I got a seat on an [...]

New Year’s absolutions

Monday, February 6, 2012 - 3:49 am - One of my New Year’s Resolutions (the only one I thought I really meant) was to post something at least once a week. It’s February somehow, so that means that I’ve already not lived up to my own expectations  at least four times. But…instead of the usual throwing up of the hands and declarations of [...]

“Miss, are you gonna fold the slice?”

Sunday, September 4, 2011 - 5:45 am - I was standing in the pizza place near my school in the Bronx, having just accepted a paper plate full of bubbling cheese. The voice belonged to Astrid, one of my classroommate Vanessa’s advisees. Astrid is a recent NYC transplant from California, and I understood immediately the purpose of her question, which essentially asks, “Are [...]

A Mother’s Day tribute

Monday, May 9, 2011 - 2:43 am - I tend to think that these minor, dare I say manufactured, holidays–Valentine’s Day, Mother’s and Father’s Days–are pretty arbitrary. Did I send my mom flowers this weekend? Of course I did, and I’m glad that there is a reminder on the calendar that I should do something like that. Mother’s Day could be any weekend, [...]

About AIWS

Everybody looks good in a tux.By the time you get to be a grownup, you may have been lucky enough to have learned a few things, such as…

  • it’s generally better to be happy than to be right
  • a long life brings blessings youth can’t imagine–and burdens youth couldn’t bear
  • people who ask you to sing never want to listen to you for more than ten minutes
  • when you make a mistake as a parent, apologize to your kid–even if the kid is still a baby, and especially if the kid has reached adulthood
  • good fences really do make good neighbors
  • when people say “How are you?” they don’t really want to know
  • your doctor, however, does want to know
  • if you wear nice cuff links and studs, nobody will suspect it’s a rented tux

I’m not on the after-dinner circuit. I’m not a talk show host, and I’ll never be a preacher.

That pretty much leaves blogging for all my memories, rants and chatter.

So here we go.

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