More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Close your eyes, go to sleep, wake up, show up to work on time for once in your life, do a good job, answer all of your unread emails, donate to charity, vote, care about the world, raise a good kid or
dog (tbd), yell at fewer strangers on Facebook, smile more (unless someone on the street tells you to, in which case don’t smile), have hope (shoutout to Barack!) but also be realistic about what you can expect out of this life (shoutout to systemic oppression!), figure out what a realistic expectation for hope in this life is, be a better person, die eventually. You know, the usual.
To this day I am amazed that someone as chill and Presbyterian as Fred Rogers created someone as over-the-top fabulous as Lady Elaine.
“It’s what we had to do,” they say, which, as an adult, I both recognize and refuse to accept. I tinker with my budget constantly. I download apps and spreadsheets and read blog
I knew I wasn’t the blackest member of my family. I mean, my mother had been involved with the Panthers and my father had taken over
the student center at MIT in a civil rights protest during undergrad. Meanwhile, I spent most of my high school years memorizing quotes from Steel Magnolias. I’m just saying there’s a spectrum.
I thought about asking Toni Collette but that seemed excessive.
At the first practice, they made me the catcher. Probably because when they asked what position I preferred, I replied, “Seated.” And it was there that I discovered my true gift.
“The demons come through the cable wires, even if the film has been edited for network television! That’s how they get you! It’s in the Bible.”
stages of winter.
You’ve got to be always thinking of how you’ll turn life events into #content, and it’s a known fact that engagements, the first baby, some new jobs, winning Big Brother, and photos with celebrities are the gold standards of social media reaction-getters. Squandering such gifts is a scandal and a sin. And I wasn’t trying to sin, because, honey, I was about to marry a preacher. I was about to be Mrs. God or whatever. Mary Man-delene? Possible. I was a little unclear on some of the details, like (a) how to contact David, (b) what male wives of preachers were called, (c) what a Presbyterian was
...more
Some of these people were wearing shorts. Jesus didn’t die on the cross for you to be exposing your knees like it’s Casual Friday, Mark.
At every meal during Black History Month, they’d set a card up at an empty space at our dining room table and we’d spend the meal talking about the person profiled in a tradition they dubbed “Dinner Guests.”
White church is very prompt.
I unwrapped a Krackel and ate it as I tried to figure out how to go about righting this wrong and also what a Krackel is and why there are no full-size versions of it. This is an entire candy brand that exclusively exists in miniature; what’s the business plan here? Deal with this later, I scolded myself. We have a holiday to save.
Easter is about salvation, and salvation is free and available to everyone. Yet so many churches put barriers around it. If our religions aren’t about the business of achieving justice in our time, in this world, for everyone, what are they doing?
Life will take your breath away.
But you had to be who you were to get to who you are.
