Jessica Barksdale Inclan's Blog

• Too Hot

  September 5, 2008

  • It's too hot to be smart these days, so I"m getting by on muscle memory and hope.  We aren't sleeping well, the fan on, the blankets off, the whine of the freeway in the distance.  The tomat

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• A Visit from Poppy

  September 4, 2008

  • Sometimes nice things happen when you don't expect them but want them, and that's the best.  I have been feeling a little bereft lately of creatures.  Sure, I've made do with my bird feeder and t

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• The Case of the Mildewed Washing Machine (and other technological mysteries)

  September 3, 2008

  • For a while, Michael and I thought we were imagining it.  Separately, we thought that we had somehow both begun to smell funky, kind of oldish and stale, like a room long closed in a humid climate

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• Can We Talk About Lasagna? And a Book.

  September 2, 2008

  • The weekend ended with a lasagna. Not your ordinary lasagna. Roasted summer squash, bolognese sauce, home made noodles, fresh mozzarella, mushrooms, ricotta.

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• Whose Baby is It?

  September 1, 2008

  • For the first time in this presidential campaign, I am feeling political.  And I don't like feeling political.  I don't like feeling angry and appalled and saddened and depressed.  It seems like

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• Random Thoughts from the Universe

  August 31, 2008

  • Here, in no apparent order, are some thoughts on recent goings on:

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• The Roller Coaster

  August 30, 2008

  • The first time I saw the movie Parenthood, it was lost on me because I was in the dense moment of being a parent.  For some stupid reason, my former spouse and I decided it would be a swe

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• My New Car

  August 29, 2008

  • About one month ago, I drove out of the dealership lot in my new MINI Cooper S, pepper white, black top, black interior.  I was lurching a little, still unused to my manual transmission.  I think

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• The Question of Fear and Learning

  August 28, 2008

  • My youngest son is likely one of the bravest people I know, and yet, as a child, he was scared of many things.  The dentist office, for one.  Of course, this could have had something to do with h

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• Trying to Find the Sweet Spot

  August 27, 2008

  • So many things mark our entry into older age that it hardly seems worthwhile talking about them.  Certainly I have detailed enough about the slowly changing body on these pages.  But I do want to

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• Telling the Sort-Of Truth

  August 26, 2008

  • When I was in high school, I hated it, which isn't a surprise, but I did something relatively good because of it:  I applied for the Regional Occupation Program (ROP) and ended up working at first

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• Orange Cats

  August 25, 2008

  • In the  spring of 1977, just as my father's illness was becoming something we could not ignore, I decided to bring home a tiny orange cat, even though I knew that I'd get in trouble.  We already

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• Grade Change

  August 24, 2008

  • Last night, I received another email from a former student begging me for a B.  Like the student I earlier wrote about, this student likewise did not get into a top university and needed the B in

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• The Body Rituals

  August 23, 2008

  • Michael walked out of our bedroom yesterday and said, "Why is there a bottle called FatGirl Slim on the bathroom counter."

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• A Class is a class is a class

  August 22, 2008

  • In early 2000, I applied for a part time teaching job with UCLA Extension.  I already taught full time, but this job sounded as though the classes I could teaching for UCLA would be more creativ

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