The Raccoon-Free Attic
Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
I'm here to tear up the window frames, rustle around in your crawl space, and eat all the Girl Scout cookies
We live in what demographers call an “urban-rural county.” The town is big enough and the countryside is close enough that we have the qualities of both. Traffic jams and deer patrols! Smog and pollen! But also theater and parks!
I live blocks from downtown. A block in one direction is the university campus, and a block in another direction is a ravine leading to a creek. It’s a little green artery into the city, and it means that in addition to frat boys, I can spot woodchucks, opossums, raccoons, and even the occasional deer in the neighborhood. (more…)
Karen Quah wrote about 
If you go for the Gerber baby type, I come from a family of very cute babies. For a variety of reasons, it’s not something the relatives comment on, which, blissfully—perhaps especially for a girl—meant a youth engaged in action, not image. The grandparents and aunts and parents talked up deeds (working hard, tucking in your shirt) rather than genetic inheritance (being tall or smart, having a marketable ratio of long-twitch to short-twitch muscle), and largely they were successful. I only learned how to do makeup after being in community theater, and after meeting someone, I can far more readily tell you, say, their stand on gender roles than their eye color. 
