Category: life
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I Want to Become the Friend Who Remembers Birthdays
Every month, I hope that I will wake up changed, a new woman, suddenly transformed into the thoughtful person I want to be—the friend who remembers birthdays. It’s sort of like how every day, my cat climbs on the back of my reclining zero gravity chair on my porch. And every day, she hopes that…
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And This Is 30
Birthdays turn her to mush (she’s a memory hoarder). Today, she reflects on her twenties, saying goodbye to the decade her old soul has spent too many late flipping-and-flopping nights wishing away. Did her circumference widen with each new ring of growth? Did she learn to number her days? Sometimes she remembers, other times she…
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The Things I Keep Forgetting to Remember
For Us. Milk (I don’t drink milk.) Bread (I tell myself I don’t eat bread Mondays-Fridays.) Toilet paper (Where does it go?) Stop using the word “thing(s)” in blog post titles (Writing 101, Ashley.) Of course, there are more substantial things on this list, but every time I have a moment of remembering the important…
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The Thing About First Birthday Parties
They’re for the adults. Evidence: coolers of Coronas over ice, an ice bucket with Chardonnay, potato salad, chicken salad, tuna salad, fruit salad, salad salad. I mean, it’s even acceptable for the birthday girl to sleep through her own party. How’s work? Any plans for vacation? Did you hear about all that flooding? Small talk…
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M(r)s. Jogger
I spend my days watching people. Yes, I recognize that this sounds creepy, but I assure you, it’s nothing like that creepster watching kids at the playground that Netflix would turn into a documentary that goes viral. I watch with innocence and wonder, marveling and curiosity. I watch to learn how to live and breathe…
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Sorry I Ate All the Cookies
She skipped town for the weekend and left a Tupperware container on the counter filled with chocolate chip cookies. She had stayed up late one night baking them, clanging baking sheet after clanging baking sheet I heard downstairs at an unusual hour, said it was really only a recipe from the back of the chocolate…
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Needed
Somewhere deep down, we all want to feel needed here, beyond Can you count these paper clips? Way beyond Turn in your time sheets. So far beyond Pay your doctors’ bill or It’s time for your colonoscopy.
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On Singing in the Shower
It’s a mysterious thing, the brain, the way it stores things up like song lyrics and then fires them straight to the heart when we least expect it. Right when we need the lyrics the most. Right in the middle of trying to clean ourselves up. Maybe the song was there all along. Read more…
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Summers at the Lake: Why We Talk About Leaving
It seems we ask about plans for leaving mid-bend and swing on the summer’s first cannonball off the wooden dock. We’re handing over the SPF30, Can you get my back?, and it has yet to soak in before we ask, And when are you leaving?, condensation barely pooling on our defrosting cans in the North…
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Lessons from a Lifeguard
I overheard the teenage girl lamenting her new lifeguard duties at a quiet pool. How is lifeguarding going? Are you loving it?, asked the neighbor, who seemed expectant of reports of contentment with youthful summer bliss. Surely, the girl’s bronzed skin and luscious locks had prepared for 16 years for a job of this Baywatch caliber. It’s…
Ashley Fenker 