Red Diaper Dharma
December 13, 2008
- A painting I did the first year Bill and I were together shows a field of green. In the center there's a floating bed, and in the middle of the bed two people, face to face, stare into each others' eyes and hold each other. That was what we were like those first years. We held each other and saved each other and were each other's everything...That's the beginning of this month's Red Diaper Dharma ...
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November 16, 2008
- Roz Chast gets me... or does she?I have a new Red Diaper Dharma column up at Literary Mama. "One of my favorite Roz Chast cartoons shows a woman in her forties or fifties wearing a flowing baggy dress with a wild hairstyle and clunky jewelry. The words read: Are you entering your "Goddess" years? Have you gotten heavily into herbal teas, especially the "soothing" ...
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October 23, 2008
- The thing about Subramanya, né Larry is this: I have built him up in my head. I have put him on a mental pedestal. My friend Em speaks so highly of him, and this is a girl who can commiserate with some of the disingenuity found in Yoga class. She thinks white people adopting Indian names is weird, too, and she is an authentic white person.The thing about my name, my normal and yet still Indian ...
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September 22, 2008
- Today is the first day of Autumn. It's my favorite time of year: my birthday, my favorite colors, the excitement of school beginning, a little nip in the air after the relentless heat of summer. Apples. Chestnuts. Persimmons. And, alas, election season. In this month's Red Diaper Dharma column "Political Fire," I tentatively stretch my hand back into the flame, remembering what it's ...
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August 25, 2008
- When Annie was a little girl, everytime we'd pull the car up in front of the house, Bill would announce, "Home again, home again, jiggity-jig." He doesn't say that any more -- that "little girl" is turning 16 next month -- but the phrase still runs through my mind whenever we get home from a trip.Techno-nude in the wilderness. Spring-fed lakes, hot springs, blue jays, cedar ...
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July 21, 2008
- My newest Red Diaper Dharma column is up at Literary Mama. "It's last month. We're on a road trip, Annie and I. Nine days through California, Nevada, and Arizona. Motels and hotels, national parks and ghost towns, road food. It's June, it's hot, and the car is small. Annie is a teenage girl and I'm her mother, and on paper this all sounds like a recipe for conflict and disaster, yet she's ...
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May 4, 2008
- The recent talk discussion of gingerbread and oxtails and chicken made me hungry so my Literary Mama column this month is about FOOD.Here's a brief excerpt from The Family Food:"Like our dog Mollie, a brown-eyed, sausage-bodied Labrador-mix, my family is completely obsessed with food. Some families drink, and that's a part of their culture. Some do sports. Some focus on academics. And some ...
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April 6, 2008
- I've been hinting at this for weeks, and now I can write about it! My new Red Diaper Dharma column is now up at Literary Mama. It's called "My Upcoming Life as a Part-Time Wife," and it just goes to show you the road of life still has a few twists and bends to it...!Here's an excerpt:Bill and I have been going on about life, and it's been good. The same house for the last nine years, ...
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March 9, 2008
- My latest Red Diaper Dharma column is up at Literary Mama! "How do you parent a teenager, how do you raise an independent child without either suppressing her spirit or making her feel uncared for? Maybe I struggle with this because of my own, rather unusual, upbringing. As a young child, my parents were, appropriately, very Hands On, but when I became a teenager, they became very Hands ...
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February 10, 2008
- I'm in Mexico, alone in a lush garden with squawking parrots and chirping songbirds. In the distance, the sounds of barking dogs, crowing roosters, and motorcycles. Meanwhile, I have a new Red Diaper Dharma column up at Literary Mama which explains what I'm doing here: "On Binges and Benders.""Unlike the disciplined writers I know and admire who get bits done every day, I write in ...
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