Some time ago–back last October, to be exact–I was in the middle of a long set of posts about education.  I had just gotten to the part where I was about to explain that although we talk about “the Enlightenment,” there are actually two Enlightenments and not just one. And that’s when the lights went…

So, I was looking over the scant comments from yesterday, and a couple of things occured to me, plus one big issue, which comes sort of on the side. 1) To say that some women at a given time and place were able to achieve is not the same thing as saying that that given time…

About ten years ago, I bought a big, heavy trade paperback called Women of the Left Bank.  I’d give you the author here, except that the thing is in the living room on my coffee table, and I’m in here, and AOL is doing the thing where it won’t load more than one web page…

Yesterday was Sunday.  I usually call Sundays my day off, but that isn’t entirely accurate.  I feel very frustrated and unhappy on days when I do not write fiction, so I write fiction on Sundays.  It’s the rest of what I do most days that I let go by the board if I feel like…

This is what my day is like. I get up very early in the morning–around 4 or 4:30, usually. I stuff enough caffeine in myself so that I am relatively functional.  Sometimes the emphasis is on “relatively.” I sit down at the computer and write fiction.  Then I get grading and other schoolwork done.  Then…

Well, my foray into rereading Oliver Twist will be done by evening–and a lot of you seem to read faster than I do, or to have more time to read–so I thought I’d do the best I could here to clear up what I’ve been thinking. That, and to make a proposal.  But that’s at…

So, I’ve been looking at the comments this morning, and it’s been interesting. Mike is right to an extent–things have indeed gotten better in many ways. But maybe not in as many ways as he thinks. Because one of the things that’s been striking me while reading Oliver Twist is how similar it is to…

I am sitting here at the start of one of those days that you just know is going to me miserable, because it looks like rain outside when there isn’t any rain yet, and everything is so humid that the concrete block is wilting. I am also in yet another spasm of temporary physical disability. …

So, I’m going to tell you right off. I don’t know how this post is going to go.  AOL is doing that wonky thing where things will and won’t load, or whatever, and then it all starts over again. At the moment, I’m having one of those odd experiences that I can’t quite find an…

Sometimes, I think I’m saying something startling, and inside I seem not to be saying anything at all. Let’s start with Lymaree’s comment that if your life on earth is a living hell, you’ll probably be open to the idea of despising it all in order to get a better life in Heaven. I completely…