Category Archives: random

Leave Them Kids Alone

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Some tv randomness: The theme song for the FX network’s Sons of Anarchy opens with a line about “riding through this world all alone.” It’s an existential line. I get that.  And it’s iconic: the lone outlaw. I get that, too.

I also know that the line belies the truth of that series: that the Sons don’t ride alone. The club is all about creating and maintaining community — family, brotherhood — so its members don’t find themselves all alone.

Feeling all alone can be a terrible, terrible thing. Continue reading →

Uni Today? Um… No Thanks.

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Back when I had my coffeehouse, a lunch customer inquired about the soup. “Is there spinach in it?”

My mid-day barrista rolled his eyes. “She puts spinach in everything.”

“Not true!” I said. “I sometimes use kale, or chard. Even collards.” Pointless protest. It was all spinach to my barrista. And to my customer, who skipped the soup that day.

My daughter doesn’t like onions. Not even the amazing roasted ones I make to go with the carrots and parsnips she does like.  The ones I sometimes finish in cream and butter. O man. Continue reading →

Simplify, Simplify! (or Not)

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In a famous quote from Walden, in the essay, “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” Thoreau exclaims, “Our life is frittered away by detail… simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!”

(To which his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson is said to have replied, “I think one ‘simplicity’ would have done it, Henry.”)

I love Thoreau, and I love that quote for its exuberance, even though I don’t care  much about simplicity and I find most “simplify your life” advice pretty unappealing. Continue reading →

Moving Day

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About a month ago — feels like longer — I wrote the last post on my old Blogger unschooling blog, Crooked Mile, and put my unschooling thoughts in storage for a while.

I knew I’d be unpacking them sooner or later, but I wasn’t sure where it would be.  Or when.

Looks like it’s going to be here.  And now.

I’ve left Crooked Mile in place for archival purposes, but I hope you’ll make the move with me and keep in touch with me here.  There’s an email option in the sidebar that you can click on to get post updates in your inbox.  Or put me in your feed reader, if you do that sort of thing.

I always thought the Mile was kind of all over the place, and maybe you liked that, but I’m needing a bit more focus these days.  So you can look for a bit more focus here.

Unpacking is good.

Unschooling is awesome.

That’s all for now.

At Some Point

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…you remember everything you knew before.  That is the point of departure, when your new life’s journey begins.