AID FOR HAITI

You can make a $10 donation to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund simply by texting HAITI to 90999. 

It will be charged to your phone bill.  This is legit.  I checked it out.  

                                                     Easy. Good. Thanks.   SueAnn

The Best American Series

As previously mention in this blog, I am an armchair scientist, very, very armchair. But each year I can’t wait for The Best American Science Writing to be released. Before I get into the merits of this year’s collection, let me, as Ricky Ricardo of the old I Love Lucy TV show used to say, “esplane” a couple of things.

First, although I l-o-v-e to read, I read very few magazines (Discover, Time, Vanity Fair). In 1989, when The Austin American-Statesman did a lengthy human interest story on me (go figure), the free-lance writer who did the story asked me what magazines I read. My reply was “none.” Since magazine writing was her “bag” she was understandable stunned and asked why, to which I replied, “Too many seductive advertisements reminding me of what I don't have, but really don’t need.”  Anyway, long story short, The Best American is a series of books that comes out each year featuring the best magazine writing in a number of genres. They always have a guest editor (some hot author in the genre) who makes the final decision about what articles are included in the collection, writes the introduction, and justifies the selections.

Some of The Best American collections are topical, i.e., The Best American Science Writing, The Best American Travel Writing, Best American Sports, Mystery, Medical, etc. Some are general, i.e., The Best American Short Stories, Nonrequired Reading, Essays, Poetry, etc., but almost without exception, they are collections of amazing to pretty damn good writing, and mind-boggling to who-gives-a damn topics. And the bonus is that even if you’re not particularly interested in the topic, the articles are typically no more than 5-20 pages long, so you’re in and out pretty quickly, and/or can easily skip forward to something more beguiling. They’re also all in paperback and therefore, not prohibitively expensive.

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times - Chapter 24

#24 – “Always wear a good bra so your breast won’t sag."
(Photo is of mom and I camping on the Medina River)

Since mom and I share (shared) the characteristic of rather large “boobies,” and an unambiguous distaste for bras, we both, unfortunately learned this lesson the hard way. Mean ole’ Mr. Gravity!

I remember with such clarity the first time I put on a bra, which was around the age of 11. Being the Tom-boy that I was, the idea of needing or wanting a bra never crossed my mind, at least not until my across-the-street neighbor, Judy Buchanan, who was a year older than me, showed me hers. Then from some really slippery logic, I thought I needed one too. I didn't have the nerve or inclination to ask my mom to buy me one, so I borrowed one of Judy’s. My reaction was something along the lines of, “That's just wrong. How will I possibly be able to walk around without knocking things over?"

Although that “training bra” (training to be cranky the rest of my natural life) was probably a size 28AAA, I felt freakishly gigantic, embarrassed, changed – like I’d crossed over some invisible, intractable line. I wore the bra out with my mom and dad to the Lucky-something restaurant for dinner, the entirety of which felt very Twilight Zone-y. I just knew that everyone in the restaurant was saying behind their covered mouths, "Look at that girl. Her honkers are enormous!" I don’t think that I wore a bra again for a year or so, or until all my friends started wearing them, but I knew going into that era of my life that there was something about those buds on my chest that were going to impact me forever. An gal-howdy was I right!

It Was Horrible!

Do you have a minute? I just did something horrible and it was horribly horrible and I really need some writing therapy. Not “work” writing therapy, blog writing therapy. I made the horrible mistake of looking too closely at the inside of my refrigerator. Did I mention how horrible it was?  I do not understand how something that holds our food and stays closed 95% of the day could possible become that dirty. And wasn’t it just last week, or last month that I scrubbed it like a 15th century deck hand? Or perhaps it was last year, but anyway my point is that a place where food is stored should not get that nasty. How does that happen!

There was dog hair in there for gawds sake! Of course there’s dog hair everywhere in our house, but honestly, the refrigerator! The dogs are hardly ever in the fridge! Some day I’m going to die a suspicious death and when they do the autopsy and cut me open, gray and black Blue Heeler hair will explode out of me and they'll put me on that A&E medical examiner’s show. What’s her name?