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Showing posts from July, 2014

Deadline Day

             I’ll tell you what, there’s quite a difference between working a 12-hour day when you’re 52 and doing it when you’re 22. What the hell.             By noon my feet start to resemble the Queen Mother’s stuffed into those low-heeled pumps she used to wear. God rest her. You can see the strap marks from my flip-flops by 1:30. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’ve taken to bringing in salty snacks on deadline day.             I’m copy editing all day, so my entire day revolves around finding a comma, or lack thereof, in the wrong place. Not to mention all those hyphenated words that need fixing. I know this doesn’t sound important to you, but to me, it’s titanic.             Anyway, after scouring the screen for hours, getting up only to use the bathroom or to get a fresh glass of water to help with the bloat, my eyes are shot.             It was bad tonight. By 7:30 p.m. all the words began to smoosh together and everything was unintelligible. I would re

Go-Go Boots and Me

   When I was in fourth or fifth grade all I wanted was a pair of white go-go boots. I didn’t want the short ankle boots that looked cowgirlesque. I wanted the kind women dancing in cages wore. The kind my older sister wore.    I finally got them, but the process was no cake walk.    I am nine years younger than my sister, and she was a cross between Nancy Sinatra and Maria from The Sound of Music to me. Our mother sewed a couple of short dresses with bell sleeves that went along with her boots for a “gig” my sister had when she was a sophomore at St. Catherine of Laboure High School. I wanted a gig.    At that time though, my gig was walking to Most Holy Name of Jesus School with our brother, Steve. He was in eighth grade and I was in first grade. He used to ply me with candy from the corner store so that I wouldn’t tell our parents that he had to stay after. Needless to say, that candy train ran out of licorice and I eventually turned him in, something I'm still not pr