Snippets

I was given my first watch when I was 5 or 6 years old.  The face featured a little girl with blond braids (Swiss Miss-like).  The band was a kind of sea foam green shiny plastic; the kind of plastic that begs to be gnawed on, which I did.  I loved having the watch because it made me feel grown up.  I hated the watch itself because it was babyish.  (I remember my brother, Andrew, trying to sell me on how cool and classy it was, once when I was lamenting over it.  I wasn't impressed with his argument.)  I'm not sure when it disappeared, or to where it disappeared, but I was missing it by the time I was ready to start college.  I had only applied to one school. Bradford College was located in Haverhill, Ma, about 90 minutes north of Boston. A small liberal arts college, Bradford was founded in 1803 and closed its doors in 1998, the year I would have graduated, had I not made some poor choices. Haverhill wasn't exactly a happeni...

Just in case the second half of the title doesn’t make it obvious that this piece has nothing to do with abortion…this piece has nothing to do with abortion (that’s a topic for another day). This is about one of my favorite topics to debate: the death penalty. Show a little patience with me, while I give three reasons why. Let’s take a walk. Reason #1: The punishment does not fit the crime (whatever crime it may be). This can basically be equated with a heavy version of ‘go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done, junior.’ A person who has committed a heinous crime, worthy of the death penalty, should be able to live uncomfortably under lock and key for a long, long time, knowing that there is no chance of ever being free, preferably with a side order of living in fear for their safety (best case scenario all-around). State-sanctioned execution is the easy way out. More people might agree with that if life sentences, without the possibility of parole, actually ...

I bought the Vapor Shark four or five quit smoking attempts ago. Going cold turkey didn't help, the gum didn't help, the patch didn't help, acupuncture didn't help, hypnosis didn't help, I'm allergic to Zyban and Chantix is a story for another day. Everyone I knew who vaped swore by it as the ultimate quit method. It didn't take much convincing. I marched my butt on into that vape store and went nuts. I bought a pen, a charger, extra batteries, extra mouth pieces, refillable oil cartridges and a snazzy case to carry around the whole lot. $75 later, I was feeling really good about this decision. I was all set to join the ranks of ex-smokers who think they've beaten their nicotine addiction. (Seriously, y'all just traded one addiction for another. Prove me wrong and throw that thing in the drink. You don't need it anymore. You haven't smoked a cigarette in five years. Just, you know, get rid of it. Go ahead, I'll wait.)   My resolve...

Imagine yourself as a pre-pubescent girl in 1987 (or, not). Unlike my contemporaries, I was not into the Sweet Valley High books. A pair of rich blond 16-year-old twins, who couldn’t be more different. Jessica was wild and outgoing (probably a little slutty); Elizabeth was shy and reserved; both loved boys, boys, boys. Oh! The antics! That wasn’t me; I was a rebel. I was smarter than that, my tastes more sophisticated. I loved fine literature. I loved history. I yearned for fine, historical literature. Enter the Sunfire romance novels. The Sunfire series was exactly what the previous sentence suggested, and they were geared towards teenage girls (I was a very advanced 11-year-old). These books were hopelessly (surely purposely) formulaic. Each book centered around a 15- or 16-year-old girl, with their first names as the title. In each book, the heroine would be pursued by two suiters: one, the young man her family expected her to marry; the other, a mysterious young man her family...

Warning: I expect to stray from the central thesis a lot in this article. A while back, I was obliged to explain the difference between racism and prejudice, after a fairly disturbed friend (not mentally, she was just upset) reported that she was called a racist during a casual dinner out with her husband and his raucous Coast Guard buddies. Although the explanation can easily be summed up in one or two sentences, I’m going to flesh it out a bit because it's way slow at work and I forgot to bring my Kindle with me. We’ll start with the official definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Prejudice” as: 1. an opinion that is not based on reason or experience; 2. dislike or unfair behavior based on such opinions. “Racism” is defined as: 1. the belief that each race has certain qualities or abilities, giving rise to the belief that certain races are better than others; 2. discrimination or hostility against other races. Back to my friend. Picture it: Benihana at ...