We went to Belmont County, on the last day. It was the last day before Adrienne’s first year at a public school began. I will never be a homeschooling mom again. We had to go to Belmont County because I am a fool. I got a phone call on Monday from the friendly school secretary, telling me that Adrienne couldn’t start school until they saw a social security card and a birth certificate. The card, I had. I didn’t... Read more
It was one of those stretches when nothing works out. Summer continued to be a terrible slump. The past-due bills just got higher. I had to go to the food pantry again. Jimmy came by asking if he could borrow fifteen dollars, but I didn’t have anything to give him, and that always irks me. The heavy rain knocked over my tomato cages, and the tomatoes swelled up and cracked from all the extra water. I can cut out... Read more
I went for a walk in the woods, not knowing. You might recall that a little over a year ago, fresh with the stinging realization that the sect of the Catholic Church I was raised in was not only eccentric but nothing but an abusive cult, I went hiking. I felt absolutely certain I was going to hell the whole time. Now, I’m not so sure. I got into Serendipity, absolutely uncertain whether I was in a state of... Read more
I’ve been trying to keep track of the case of Father Alex Crow. I’m going to try to get the facts straight, as more information seems to come out every minute. It seems that late last month, a 30-year-old priest by the name of Alex Crow, who had only recently been ordained and who had a lurid obsession with exorcisms and Marian apparitions, fled the country with an 18-year-old girl. There was speculation that he’d taken the girl to Europe... Read more
The first step was to coax myself to go to the food pantry. We’ve been having a hard summer. I think things will go better once Adrienne is in school, but it’s very tight just. The utility bills were high with our hodgepodge of window air conditioners, everything was coming due at once, there wasn’t any money to spare except a handful of change in my purse. But I did have the keychain card that the food pantry had given... Read more
During the third Trump arraignment, I took Adrienne swimming. I was tired of seeing our former president and hearing his silly name. I was exhausted of the sound of his voice and the protestations of the cultists who think he’s their savior. I came home hours later and watched a video of the events, from a foreign news network. I listened to a snooty-voiced reporter tell the snooty-voiced anchorman about the trouble Trump was in, the charges against him,... Read more
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew: After he had fed the people, Jesus made the disciples get into a boat and precede him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. After doing so, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When it was evening he was there alone. Meanwhile the boat, already a few miles offshore, was being tossed about by the waves, for the wind was against it. During the... Read more
We were playing outside. This happened a long time ago, when we’d just moved into this rickety rental house on a moderately bad street in LaBelle. I’d forgotten all about it until I saw it come up in my Facebook memories, and it made me sad. Adrienne, who used to be called Rosie, was almost four. She and I had just gotten back from Dollar Tree. We were even poorer than we are now, and there usually wasn’t a... Read more
On Tuesday I saw the circular saws. The video was going viral on the internet: apparently, Greg Abbot’s barrier stretched across the Rio Grande is equipped with booby traps. In between the floating red buoys are circular saws designed to maim anybody who tries to climb over them. The Mexican government is reporting that two bodies have been found dead in the river nearby– one of them entangled in the trap. Abbot is pro-life. The people who... Read more
We went swimming. We went to the small town of Toronto, Ohio, which would be just ten minutes up Route Seven from my house if they ever finished the construction and opened both lanes. As it is, it takes half an hour. Toronto is much smaller and cleaner than Steubenville. It’s on a steep hillside cascading down to the Ohio, with West Virginia cascading up on the other side. You see rolling trees on the mountains instead of layers... Read more
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