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Cost vs Benefit Analysis of Vulnerability

Posted on December 9, 2018

I’m teasing you with that post title. I do want to talk about vulnerability, acknowledging from the get-go I can’t possibly address all the different kinds of vulnerability. There are costs and benefits for each type, but how we weigh them will be vastly different. We don’t get to eliminate vulnerability, I mean, we can avoid it, do our best to minimize exposure, but then when we feel super safe a gust of wind’ll sweep right in and reveal all. Perhaps if we each move forward acknowledging that all of us are walking around with exposed patches of vulnerability then we can be the tiniest bit kinder—I won’t say if I mean kinder to ourselves or to others because either would be grand. Lately,…

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Categories: Me

Saying Yes to Seeing Things Differently

Posted on November 7, 2018

You know that feeling when you discover a new word and then you keep seeing and hearing it? A month or two ago I agreed to participate in a campaign for GenderAvenger. Sounds superheroic, doesn’t it? I’d learned about them from my friend Elan, from what I’d seen GenderAvenger identified missed opportunities for a balance of gender representation at things like conferences. What I discovered as I began using  GA Tally, an app to quickly log who is speaking or how long people are speaking is that things can be pretty lopsided. The early tallies came out better than I expected. The first event was a women’s luncheon and there was a woman of color on the panel. Yay, right? At first, yes, but…

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Categories: Roar

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All Of It

Posted on November 5, 2018

I am feeling all of it—tired and motivated, satisfied and discouraged, angry and at ease. There are moments when I imagine that I have parenting handled, marriage under control, and running a business mastered. Other times I think, “Damn, I’m a fake.” The other day, riding home from Finley’s concert, each of us tired to the bone from a week of to-dos, I tried to figure out if I was succeeding or failing. Why I continue to try and gauge how I’m doing is beyond me. I’d managed to get to the store to buy Finley a concert shirt between late nights for work and rehearsal. Saturday morning we found a pair of Avery’s shoes that would work because “If I wear my black…

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Categories: Random

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Vote Like Your Life Depends On It

Posted on October 28, 2018

The midterm elections are around the corner. Maybe you are sick of the ads, or you think your vote can’t possibly make a difference. I hope you will reconsider. I’ve looked back a lot since 2016. I made donations to candidates, I sent out tweets, and posted on Facebook. I wrote and spoke with friends. I didn’t knock on doors. I didn’t put a bumper sticker on my car. I didn’t attend meetings or rallies. I didn’t speak as plainly as I could have. I thought it was going to turn out fine. It did not turn out fine, and I am trying to change the way I participate to come out on the other side feeling like I gave it my all. Last…

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Categories: Random

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Your Disbelief Doesn’t Eliminate My Reality

Posted on September 23, 2018

Would you mind if we spent a little time here on context? I ask because just yesterday I bumped into someone and I watched it take a minute for her to place me. When it registered she smiled and blurted, “Amanda” triumphantly. We both laughed, there were no hurt feelings or judgment. “Context matters,” I said. It can be pretty easy to assume that everyone has the same perspective or familiarity with something—whether something is a person, an event, or an experience. Over the past several years there have been attempts to contextualize people’s perspectives on pain: Trigger warnings, #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo. These hashtags and qualifiers are an effort to bring to the surface the pain or obstacles that people have and to honor them.…

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Categories: Roar

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