It’s been a bit since I wrote. My mini-Sabbatical away from the internet was not as refreshing as I thought. I didn’t do anything interesting. There is rarely anything interesting to do. Our move out of town is still up in the air, but it’s closer than it used to be. I still have no definite plan, but when I say “I don’t know when, but soon,” I say it with more confidence this month. I found someone who lets... Read more
I am exhausted. I’m completely exhausted. I promised myself I wouldn’t watch the hearings, but of course I watched hours of them. I felt every feeling imaginable. I don’t honestly think anything was really changed, today. It’s a wash. People who had no empathy for women to begin with didn’t suddenly find it at Dr. Christine Ford’s testimony. Those who believed Ford before, believe her now. Those who think Kavanaugh’s appointment is more important, despite not being able to give... Read more
I’ve got a question for the group today. I am probably going to moderate comments even less than usual, because part of me would love to see answers and excuses, but another part doesn’t even want to know. But I’ll really try to check back. Why does the next Supreme Court Justice have to be Kavanaugh? I understand that the oldschool pro-life movement has been jockeying for something like this for as long as I’ve been alive. I was told... Read more
I went to a Catholic school named after the Virgin Mary, when I was nine and ten years old. The school’s playground monitors were called “prefects,” an aggrandizement I have not heard used at other schools in America. They were usually students’ mothers working on a volunteer basis. The school usually gave them a whistle, and no training. Sometimes, they didn’t even get a whistle. The prefects kept order on the playground by always punishing both sides of a... Read more
I was at the 5:30 PM Mass. I was lonely and cranky, as usual, homesick for my Byzantine Divine Liturgies, trying to be grateful to be at a liturgy at all but failing because I am a grouch. I didn’t want to be there. I was annoyed. A few rows behind me, someone wouldn’t stop talking. It sounded like a grown man or a teenage boy was providing his own commentary on the liturgy. In the pauses that followed... Read more
Jesus and his disciples left from there and began a journey through Galilee, but he did not wish anyone to know about it. He was teaching his disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.” But they did not understand the saying, and they were afraid to question him.They came to Capernaum and, once inside... Read more
Hello friends, I am working on today’s Sunday Gospel mediation in another tab, late as usual, and that will be up before I leave for the late Mass. This post is only your periodic reminder that Steel Magnificat, and my family, are almost entirely run on gratuities. I work from home as a writer due to my chronic illness, churning out three to seven literary art projects per week here, my husband copyedits for me, and he’s also the homemaker... Read more
My daughter, Rose, was delivered by emergency Caesarian, on the first day of Autumn, over in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio. “Autumn Begins in Martin’s Ferry, Ohio” also happens to be the name of a beautiful poem by James Wright, a sort of ode to the despair of the blue-collar workers in the Ohio Valley. I can’t tell you if the culture in Martin’s Ferry lives up to the poem’s description. Martin’s Ferry just looked like the inside of a hospital room,... Read more
I have heard many different responses to the accusations against Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Most of them have been well-reasoned, whether I agreed with their conclusions or not. Some have been off the wall. There were a few that made me a sick. For instance, the other day I saw someone say, in total sincerity, “Can any of us honestly say we never got drunk and did something foolish we regret at a party when we were seventeen?” I’m sure she... Read more
My daughter, Rosie, used to love tearing up the National Review. I don’t remember who got us a subscription to the National Review. I don’t think I ever got around to reading a single article before Rosie, who was a baby just taking her first steps, would find the magazine and have a good old time tearing it to shreds. I used to wonder what offended her so much about the publication. I couldn’t guess, since I didn’t get a... Read more
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