I was just sitting down to write when there was a knock at the door. It was The Princess, in yet another ballet tutu and mismatched Crocs. “I’ll bet you’d like a Popsicle again,” I said. “No,” she said, grinning. “I want orange juice.” We did happen to have some orange juice. I fetched her a cup, and got back to work for approximately five minutes. Then, of course, the shrieking started, and I had to go back out. Jimmy’s... Read more
I saw on the news that Joe Negri had died. I wasn’t exactly surprised. He was nearly a hundred years old, after all. It’s surprising that he’d lived that long. Still, I was terribly sad. I’ve written so many times about how much Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood affected me, as a child. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on the rug, uncomfortably close to my father’s fuzzy old television with the two dials instead of a remote, watching... Read more
I am reading “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding The Human Person In The Time Of Artificial Intelligence,” Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical. It’s very good. I am reading extremely slowly because I have other deadlines this week, but I hope to talk to you about it in a few days. Just now, I only want to react to the way people are REACTING to “Magnifica Humanitas.” This post is not about the encyclical, only the dialogue. EVERYONE has an opinion... Read more
Wednesday Was the Eighth Grade Graduation. Adrienne has done wonderfully. Once I pulled the plug on homeschooling and put her in a public school, she began to shine. She taught herself ways to get around the dyslexia that astonished me, and quickly became the fastest reader with the best comprehension in class. She was moved from the normal classes up to the honors section and still maintained that flawless academic record. She tested into 100-level college courses which the... Read more
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew: The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to... Read more
Nothing went the way that it should, and that was a mercy. It all began with the catalytic converter– or, rather, the lack of a catalytic converter. Jimmy was curious as to why my car still ran so loudly and smelled so terrible after the engine replacement last year. He examined the underside of the car, which is when he found out that I did not have a catalytic converter, just a pipe. Ohio doesn’t have emissions inspections, so... Read more
The Princess first came to LaBelle last summer, and stayed for months. She was a tiny little girl, barely bigger than a toddler, the granddaughter of a friendly man who lives down the street. Every single day she would wear some emblem of royalty with her clothing: a plastic crown from the dollar store, or a pair of gauze fairy wings, or a pink satin dress-up princess dress over fuzzy pajamas. She never left the house without her... Read more
I met a new friend at nearly midnight, last weekend. Michael had just gotten off a late shift. It was quite dark and chilly. One of his regular customers was still in the restaurant as he ate his dinner after a twelve hour shift. The customer was on the phone, arguing loudly with a cab company. I suppose that Steubenville is the only place on earth where you can’t get an Uber or a Lyft. Back when I didn’t have... Read more
Have you ever thought about the way changing a name can change your whole perspective? If you follow medical news at all, you might have heard that a consensus of health organizations has changed the name of the chronic illness that up until yesterday was called poly-cystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). The sickness formerly known as PCOS, is now called ‘polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome” (PMOS). There’s no change in the official list of symptoms, the treatment or the diagnostic criteria, just... Read more
It hurts to go to Mass alone on Mothers’ Day. I’ve healed so much the past several years, but sometimes the old hurts still sting. I am happy hundreds of days out of three hundred sixty-five, every year for the past two or three years, but sometimes the old grief chokes me. Sometimes I catch myself being happy, and it feels unfamiliar, which reminds me of the feelings underneath. The other night I had that dream I thought... Read more
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