Who I am…
I am a lawyer, former mother of teenagers, and a quixotic seeker after and champion of factual truth.
I make the best damn brownies you have ever had that are not regulated by the federal government.
I love movies, Broadway, and intelligent conversation.
I think in song lyrics and movie and television quotes.
I believe in the use of proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar even in text messages. I am willing to debate the use of the Oxford comma, if you know what the Oxford comma is. It also makes me very happy if people use the subjunctive mood when appropriate.
I have been told I intimidate people. I am really just a fluffy-centered teddy bear. Really.
- It's all my fault. No, really. The views expressed in this blog are mine and mine alone and in no way whatsoever represent the views of anyone else, including any past, present, or future employer.
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Words to live by ….
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Micah 6:8.
“Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living.” Mary Harris (“Mother Jones”).
“Don’t boo. Vote.” Barack Obama.
“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Reinhold Niebuhr.
“No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things.” Sir Terry Pratchett.
“Damning facts are still facts.” Steven C. Holtzman.
“If you don’t stick to your values when they’re tested, they’re not values — they’re hobbies.” Jon Stewart.
“Darkness never sustains, even though it sometimes seems it will.” Doctor Who.
“Writing is a form of mischief.” Stephen Sondheim.
“An idea is not responsible for the people who believe it.” Don Marquis.
“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.” Joseph Campbell.
“Truth is our strongest ally, our biggest weapon, and our best defense.” Me.
“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Stephen Colbert.
“The opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation.” Jonathan Larson.
“We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall, and light from dying embers
Remembrances that hope and love last longer.
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love;
Cannot be killed or swept aside.”
Lin-Manuel Miranda.“If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Emma Goldman.
“No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett.
“I believe that the God who made (among other things) light, and space, and number, and time, and the spiral curve of Fibonacci numbers, must be acknowledged to understand more than I do about why there’s pain in the world.” Teresa Neilsen Hayden.
“No, it’s not fair. You’re in the wrong universe for fair.” John Scalzi.
“Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.” Lawrence O’Donnell
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.” Molly Ivins.
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Category Archives: Blogging
The 50K challenge (a.k.a., NaNoWriMo for attentionally challenged bloggers)
If you are paralyzed by a voice in your head It’s the standing still that should be scaring you instead Go on, and do it anyway “Do It Anyway,” The Ben Folds Five So, I have been trying to do … Continue reading
Writing. And the college admissions process (actually unrelated)
I am doing a lot of my writing offline. There is a problem in using Starbucks Wi-Fi, and not just with security: depending upon the Starbucks and the time of day, the network can be horribly slow. I was in … Continue reading
I have so much to write about. At this point I have 16 browser tabs open, not including this one, and a mess (that’s a term of art) of links stored in my Safari reading list. Topics range from Jenny … Continue reading
Well, yes, I suppose it is kind of shallow, at that.
Part of the problem with being on painkillers is that it shuts down the part of the brain capable of making complicated arguments. I can do some of it, but not nearly as well as I would like. Foregoing the … Continue reading
I had planned to spend a lot of time writing this evening, and this month in general. Friday was the first day of NaNoWriMo, and while I have not participated in years (I have neither the attention span nor the … Continue reading
New Pages.
If you look at my masthead, you should notice I have added three new pages: Beadwork and Recipes, Pat’s Favorite Posts, and Pat’s Gratitude Posts. That second one has far too many links — I need to winnow it a … Continue reading
Dreams?
I just remembered this xkcd comic. I need to work on keeping the message in mind. [Warning: bad language.]
Aarghhhhh!!!
Dear WordPress; telling me I can paste text from Word, is great. Messing up the spacing on that text, not so great. Not letting me edit the text, abysmal.
To whichever of my coworkers insisted that I really needed to try the “dark flight” at Steins Beer Garden in Mountain View… A) you were right and B) this is your fault that I am BWI (blogging while intoxicated). On … Continue reading
I’m still here.
It’s been a long time (okay, two months), since I wrote with any regularity. I am hoping to change that. I have been working, which takes up some time, and I have been writing other things, which takes up more. … Continue reading
Today, to go with the strained ligaments and the resulting crutches, I now have a bruise on my left wrist where a coworker nearly backed over me as I was getting my crutches out of the trunk of his car. … Continue reading
“We effectively set a Google Alert for our soul.”
This piece may well explain why I became so obsessed with my blog states over at Blogger, and why walking away from Facebook was hard.
I have not been blogging. There are my thought about the Boston bombers, which are still tangled. There are my thoughts about my birthday, and my age, and where I am in my life, which are melancholy and whiny, verging … Continue reading
I have done it. I have retreated. I have let go. I have deactivated my Facebook account. Actually, I deactivated my account a week ago. I have not missed it as much as I would have thought before I did … Continue reading
Making Light is wonderful place. What makes it so endearing is not just the quality of the posts themselves, which is high, but the insightful and often witty comments. In the case of this post about a program to eliminate … Continue reading
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