February 25th, 2016 → 6:16 am
“We are but warriors for the working day;
Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched
With rainy marching in the painful field.” – Henry V
It was a snow day here in St. Louis yesterday, and the whole family stayed inside playing games and watching movies. Now, alas, it is back to work…through wet, sluggish fields.
Filed under: Blog & Other & Self/My Life
February 10th, 2016 → 5:09 am
“The air bites shrewdly, it is very cold.” – Hamlet
I get much of my inspiration regarding what to blog about from reading the newspaper and keeping up with current events. But these days, all you can read about are the U.S. presidential primaries! It’s as if the entire rest of the world has disappeared! So I have no real inspiration for what to blog about this morning. I’ll instead focus on the cold winter weather. It snowed yesterday and my poor son woke up insisting that it meant he could stay home from school. I had to explain to him that just because there was new snow on the ground, that didn’t automatically mean there was no school. I’m not sure he ever really got over the disappointment of having to get up out of his warm bed and face the day…
Filed under: Blog & Other & Politics/Politicians & Self/My Life
October 25th, 2015 → 5:54 am
“You can never bring in a wall.” – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Though you can beat your head against one. Lesson of the day.
Filed under: Blog & Self/My Life
September 9th, 2015 → 5:12 am
I’ll be leading an online discussion of Julius Caesar in about a week – feel free to join the conversation if you can: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/303-shakespeare-fans. In the meantime, a favorite quote from the play:
“Et tu, Brute?” – Julius Caesar
This quote runs through my mind rather more often than it probably should, as I am, and always have been, innately distrustful of people.
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Self/My Life
August 18th, 2015 → 5:57 am
“That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes,
To worry lambs and lap their gentle blood.” – Richard III
I read an article recently about anxiety in the 21st century and, astoundingly, it said that Shakespeare only used the word “worry” once in his entire collection of works (see quote above, and he used it to mean “choke,” not be stressful). Through my own research I discovered that Shakespeare actually uses worry twice, if you allow both “worry” and “worrying,” but still, that isn’t much use of the word, and not even in the way we use it today. The article suggested that people simply didn’t worry back in the 16th century; that doing so is a modern malady, invented really in the 20th century when we finally had the time to navel-gaze and let anxiety about things grow. Personally, I can not imagine my life without worrying. What would I do for 75% of every day? How many novel mathematical theorems would I be able to come up with if 98% of my brain weren’t allocated to worrying? What kind of conversations would I have with my son if half of them weren’t motivated by worry of him harming himself? Would I enjoy eating more if I didn’t always worry about becoming fat? I…can’t…imagine…
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Self/My Life
August 14th, 2015 → 8:56 am
“A hit, a very palpable hit.” – Hamlet
I took my son to his first baseball game last night. And every time the St. Louis Cardinals had a hit I wanted to yell, “A hit, a very palpable hit!” Am I the only Shakespeare fan whose gone to a baseball game and wanted to do this??
(Note: My husband’s answer is – yes.)
Filed under: Blog & Self/My Life
July 19th, 2015 → 6:10 am
“Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!” – Tempest
We’re off to the West Coast for a family wedding. Newlyweds…they’re always so cute, and so naive…
Filed under: Blog & Other & Self/My Life
July 8th, 2015 → 5:42 am
“Unarm, Eros. The long day’s task is done
And we must sleep.” – Antony and Cleopatra
So we moved to a new house this week. And it has been exhausting. I’ve come to liken the process of moving to the process of childbirth. You forget how bad it is until you’re actually in the middle of it, and then you think, why did I do this?? Both were for, in the end, my son. The things we do for our kids, right?
Filed under: Blog & Self/My Life
June 16th, 2015 → 5:19 am
“A gallant child…makes old hearts fresh.” – The Winter’s Tale
We’re in the middle of family visiting season – relatives are either coming to see us in St. Louis, or we’re off visiting them. And it is remarkable how a child’s laughter can reform a room. When my son does one of his pure joy belly laughs, even cranky aunts and uncles uncross their legs and crack a smile. I wish we could bottle up his laughter and keep it forever…
Filed under: Blog & Self/My Life
March 4th, 2015 → 9:46 pm
Had a great half an hour live radio interview with Cyrus Webb on #ConversationsLIVE earlier this evening. We talked about The Other Shakespeare, women’s history month, family, relationships, love, life, and so much more. Not to ruin it for the cities its coming to in the next few days (North Carolina this weekend, Atlanta on Monday…), but you can check it out now as a podcast. And thank you again for the wonderful conversation Cyrus Webb!
Filed under: Blog & Literature/Theatre/Art & Self/My Life