My Rosie is almost eight years old. She is beautiful, but she doesn’t care about that and is annoyed when I bring it up. Rosie wants me to hack her hair into a bowl cut that stays comfortably out of her face; she wears jeans or leggings and superhero t-shirts. Most of her friends are boys, because the girls find her odd. Her best friend is a boy I’ll call Jeremiah, who lives down the street. The two like to… Read more
May 24, 2019
He Fills the Empty and Exhausted
May 24, 2019 By Mary Pezzulo
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I have been sick for a week. The nature of living on tips being what it is, we are having a lower-income May after three high-income months. We couldn’t get my tonics and herbal remedies I usually use to control my fibromyalgia when we meant to, and last weekend they ran out. We managed to scrape together another week’s worth eventually, but that exhausted our funds again and they won’t come in the mail until Tuesday anyway. The resulting… Read more
May 19, 2019
Let’s Look at the Latest Abortion Legislation
May 19, 2019 By Mary Pezzulo
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Pour yourself a stiff drink. Today’s post is going to be a long one. And it’s going to be about abortion. I enjoy writing about abortion, because I like it when pro-life and pro-choice people come together in large groups to spam my combox, call me names, and loudly speculate about how many abortions I’ve gotten and what embarrassing perversions I have. Sometimes they spam my friends-only facebook page as well. The Pavone devotees are my absolute favorites. They are off the… Read more
May 17, 2019
For Anyone Struggling with the News This Week
May 17, 2019 By Mary Pezzulo
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I have many, many things to say about the news of the past week. I don’t know how I can even do it justice here in blog posts of two thousand words or less. I am not a person who believes in being simplistic about things that aren’t simple. But there are a few things I need to say right off the bat. If anyone reading this was conceived in rape, or in incest, or in an abusive relationship… Read more
May 16, 2019
May is a Mystery Most Uncertain
May 16, 2019 By Mary Pezzulo
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I have told you about February in the Ohio Valley, which is gray on gray. I’ve told you about March, which is gold. April is green and full of consequences. The month of May in the Ohio Valley is a patchwork of color. Lilacs break out all over LaBelle, and then they die off in a week. The vacant lots spring high with tassle-topped grass, yellow dandelions and purple clover– and the next minute, they’re mowed into a flat patch… Read more
May 15, 2019
PBS, Aardvarks, and Indoctrination
May 15, 2019 By Mary Pezzulo
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People all over the internet are shocked at PBS, for the thousandth time. This time, apparently, the hullabaloo is about a same-sex wedding on an episode of the cartoon Arthur, which aired for the first time today. I didn’t watch the episode, but apparently it went something like this: Arthur and the gang are shocked when their fussy male bachelor teacher, Mr. Ratburn, answers his phone in class. Then they are shocked to witness him berated and ordered around by… Read more
May 13, 2019
The Day we Learned School was Dangerous
May 13, 2019 By Mary Pezzulo
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We got on the bus to go downtown, at the beginning of our school year. There was going to be a “free backpack giveaway,” for all children going back to school, and I’d been told that homeschoolers would not be turned away. I hoped it was true; I’d encountered a little hostility to homeschoolers around town before. And that began again when I got on the bus. “You ain’t allowed to get a backpack,” said a boy from the… Read more
May 13, 2019
The May Tin Cup Rattle
May 13, 2019 By Mary Pezzulo
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Hi friends, This is your periodic reminder that Steel Magnificat, and my family, are run almost entirely on gratuities. I have been so often home-bound from my chronic illness that my husband is a full-time homemaker and takes care of our daughter; I support the family here at Patheos, writing three to seven literary art projects per week. I get a very small monthly check from Patheos based on clicks, and the rest of my family’s income is based on… Read more
May 11, 2019
If You’re Going to Preach a Homily On Mother’s Day…
May 11, 2019 By Mary Pezzulo
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I have a message to any priests out there, or any clerics at all for that matter, planning your homilies and sermons for tomorrow. At this rate I’m going to miss the homilies written for the vigil Mass, but the ones you’re still putting together for Sunday. Sunday is Mothers’ Day, at least in the United States. And on Mothers’ Day, it tends to be the unspoken tradition that priests preach on Mothers’ Day rather than the gospel, or… Read more
May 9, 2019
Ohio Bill Could Kill Women With Ectopic Pregnancies
May 9, 2019 By Mary Pezzulo
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You have surely heard by now that Georgia passed an extremely strict “heartbeat bill,” set to go into effect on the first of January, that would treat women who get abortions like criminals. It’s been suggested that this bill will also put mothers who miscarry in danger of prosecution. I have things to say about the bill, but I want to get back to them at a later time. First I need to address something that’s happening in my… Read more
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