Results tagged “ethelmerman”

I grew up in a very large, very Catholic family, pre-pedophilic priest scandal, back when members of the faith did not question what they were told, and really embraced that whole sheep thing. At least my father did. He was a convert—they say these are the worst—and he marched us up to the front pew of our little parish church, where I’m sure the congregation seated behind us had a field day counting our heads (ELEVEN!) in astonishment. Besides being reminded regularly that God was punishing us for this or that—for instance, let’s say I punched my brother and then turned around a stubbed my toe, that would be God punishing me—we were also regularly reminded that we were going to hell. Very relaxing childhood, I’m telling yo

October is fast drawing to a close, which means it’s about time for me to rip another page off of the huge, desk blotter calendar that sits on the floor next to my office chair. Each month when I do this, I pause for a moment to look over how many squares have activities written on them. The answer this month is—as with most— all of them. I did so many things this past month that even I’m amazed. The list is too long to offer in full, but among other things I did the following: performed four weddings; went to three concerts (Jonathan Richman, Magnetic Fields, Ray Lamontagne); attended the Austin High School homecoming football game (I love marching bands!); turned in two final edits for book manuscripts; pitched two new books; finished knitting a pair of socks; wrote several million blog posts; visited an organic chicken farm; watched Annie Get Your Gun; smashed my car into Warren’s car in the driveway causing $400 worth of damage (okay, that wasn’t scheduled on the calendar, it sort of just happened); and dealt with the death of my son’s beloved ’93 Cadillac. Oh yeah, and I voted.