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What I Learned About Myself From A “Hater”
I learned four things about myself this past week. I’m 54 and thought I knew myself pretty well but self-awareness is a lifelong journey, I guess. I learned these things because I received an email...
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Segregation Is Still Alive And Well in Huntsville, Alabama
On Sunday, March 8, 2015, at 2:00, Merrimack Hall will host Birmingham-based attorney Deborah Mattison in a free workshop to discuss special education law. Ms. Mattison is our state’s leading expert on...
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Spread The Word To Stop The Word
This post previously appeared on this blog on March 5, 2014. In honor of “Stop The Word Week,” I am sharing it again. You can visit the “Spread the Word to End the Word” website here, where you will...
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My Mastectomy And A Note
Tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m., I will check into UAB hospital for a preventative double mastectomy with reconstruction, a surgery that may take as long as ten hours. I’ve been quite anxious about this,...
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Mastectomy, Pathology Results And A Rhetorical Question
So it’s been one week since my preventative double mastectomy with immediate reconstruction because I have the BRCA gene mutation and it hasn’t been that bad. If having my intestines resected multiple...
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My Recovery From Addiction…An Update
After six weeks of taking it slow, I felt ready to jump back into a regular schedule. At meetings and events, I visited with friends and colleagues I haven’t seen since prior to having a preventative...
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On Taking A Girl With Down Syndrome To The Prom
Every spring, I see posts and articles like this one, about a handsome quarterback who invites a girl with special needs to be his date to the prom. Messages threads on multiple postings of this story,...
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Marriage Equality…For Everyone?
Beth and Frank are deeply in love. They have been in a committed, exclusive relationship for nearly 20 years. They have a wide circle of friends and a wide variety of shared interests. They take pride...
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Caitlyn Jenner…Don’t Shoot The Messenger
In this blog, I advocate for people with special needs. My mantra has been, “We’re all more alike than we are different” and “Normal is a dryer setting.” I was starting to think that our culture might...
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Writing Stories With Billy Bob Thornton
Billy Bob Thornton has written a lot of things – Oscar-winning screenplays, best-selling books, chart-topping songs. He sometimes writes on his own, sometimes with collaborators. Back in April, he...
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On Taking A Child With Autism To Public Places
You’ve probably heard about the Broadway actor, Kelvin Moon Loh, who took to his Facebook page to state his dismay over the behavior of the audience at last Wednesday’s matinee of The King and I. If...
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Another Post About My Boobs
It’s been six months since I had a preventative double mastectomy, thanks to the BRCA 1 gene mutation that has run roughshod through the women in my family and to paraphrase one of my daughter’s...
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Saban and Swinney Share A Secret For Their Success
Monday night, I will be glued to the television to watch Alabama and Clemson duke it out for the NCAA National Championship. I will be pulling for Alabama…I went to school there and will be on the edge...
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Dance Teachers: Please Put Some Clothes On Your Students
Dance Teachers, we need to talk. You have got to stop sending children out to dance in public in their underwear. Maybe you’ve added some rhinestones to that underwear or maybe you’ve strategically...
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Are We Lowering The Barre…Or Raising It?
Project Up dancers performed at the 2013 Dizzy Feet Foundation Gala in LA Well, hello again dance lovers! Last week, I wrote about dance costumes. If you read through the comments on this blog and all...
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I Witnessed Something at the Polls That Made Me Sick
I’m about to do something I’ve never done before on my little blog. I’m going to rant. Big time. About politics and voting. May not even proofread. Will probably use a lot of expletives so now might be...
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I Owe You An Apology
Dear Readers: I did a crappy thing on Tuesday. I hit “publish” on a blog post about what happened when I went to the polls and didn’t bother to think through all the implications of my words. I was...
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What I Know About Marriage On The Eve Of My 30th Anniversary
On March 22, 1986, at 2:00 p.m., Alan and I got married. Our wedding day…so young and in love! We had dated for five years already. We were young, naive and in love. Thirty years later, we are older...
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Dear Candidates: The Minority Group You’ve Forgotten
Disclaimer: Except where otherwise noted (phrases appearing in blue are links to information that corroborates my statements), this post reflects my opinions. And we all know about opinions… Dear...
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What I Learned About Being White When I Visited South Africa
During apartheid, the government of South Africa enforced racial identification through laws like the Population Regulation Act. The races are still broadly referred to as white or Afrikan, black or...
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