Hear the Whispers and Roars

I sat in a room with 150 people, mostly women, last night. I had a piece of paper in front of me with a list of names. Amanda. Shannette. Angela. Beth. Ordinary names. Ordinary women. Just like us. They were big and small. They were well-dressed and casual. They had the hair and the make-up, and the natural look. One woman had a masters in psychology. You couldn’t tell, scanning the audience, who was going to get up and speak next. You just had to wait for their names to be called and see who stood up and went to the stage.

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Happy Birthday, Dad!

This past Saturday was my dad’s birthday. He celebrated it in typical Dad fashion, by attending Super Chevy in Memphis, TN. My dad is a car guy to the nth degree. He’s a complete motorhead, and I mean that in the best possible way. He can fix anything on God’s green earth with a few Snap-On tools and some time. I know this because he’s fixed my cars and my houses, and he’s fixed the cars and houses of most everyone in my family. Even if he’s never seen something before in his life, he can take it apart, figure it out, and fix it. My grandma used to tell me stories of Dad taking apart her appliances just to see how they worked.

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Blues

Some days I just feel sad.
Because of everything bad in the world
and because of nothing at all in particular
but everything in general.

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Nekkid

Last night, after Zozo’s bath, I lathered her up with lotion and let her run back down the hallway to see her Daddy. Naked. (Zozo, that is, not Daddy.) She was so adorable…little bare toddler body with the pot belly and chubby thighs and scrawny arms. Cute little baby butt. Made me laugh, watching her run around in her birthday suit.

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