So I've bought a flip phone. I’m going to commit to using this phone for a month. Just to see what happens. I’ll probably fail after six minutes and resume an intimate relationship with an Apple device. But I’d like to see if I can rediscover my own life.
I wonder if we Americans couldn’t put aside our disagreements for a moment, and agree on a few things we love.
I’m a big fan of physical newspapers. Even though they aren’t en vogue anymore, you can usually find one at the supermarket.
The Helen Keller Art show is in full swing. The center is adorned in art. Tactile pieces. Colorful artwork. Sculptures. The artists are mostly students from the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind.
It was an average weeknight in Birmingham when I stood atop the Vulcan statue. Snow on the ground. I was looking at the city below, standing beneath Vulcan’s massive butt cheeks.
Her lowest point came when her ‘83 Toyota gave out. It was the day of her son’s 12th birthday. She had been picking up extra gigs lately so she could afford a birthday present for her boy.
I can either look to the old year, staring at all the crap strewn behind me, and bid the old me a tearful goodbye. Or I can say hello to what comes next.
The girl was eating fast because we HAD to hurry and finish SUPPER because we were exchanging PRESENTS after the MEAL. I’m surprised she didn’t choke on her mac and cheese.
It all started when a lunch lady befriended a lonely little boy...
It’s hard to choose my favorite Christmas movie. Each time I try to pick one, I’m afraid I’ll shoot my eye out.
I went to buy Advent candles today. It was a big box store. The young employee had no idea what I was talking about.
On Highway 67, atop Priceville Mountain, stands the Cross of North Alabama. The 121-foot cross stands proudly in a flawless blue sky, overlooking a rural Morgan County.
Today, schoolkids across the nation will sit at desks, forced to write at knifepoint the same essay we all wrote each November: “What I’m Thankful For.”
I love the sun. I need the sun. When it disappears, I start to miss the sun in much the same way I would miss trees, grass, or ice cream, if those things were to vanish behind clouds.
You can’t get away from canned music. It’s everywhere. Like the IRS. Playing in public spaces just loud enough to hear the music thumping.
I don’t care what you’ve heard, community college is the beating heart of America. Your big, fancy schools are well and good. But show me a community college, and I’ll show you the vascular system of this nation.
I like it when neighbors walk by your porch and wave at you. I like it when feral cats creep up the steps to say hello. I like how the windchimes ring.
Although letter writing is not efficient; although it is time consuming; although I can think of more important things I ought to be doing, I still remember the impact handwritten letters have had on my life.
Running was a way for me to feel special. Just for an hour out of my day, I could feel a little better about me.
Lives are being saved. Heroes. Each one of them. They are carrying the wounded of our kinship toward safety, on their own backs.
The Mexican restaurant was crowded. There were twinkly lights. Terracotta tiles everywhere. Trumpet music.
When I first moved to Alabama, people said the weather was going to be the worst thing to contend with. And they were right, to a point.
The average American will spend 11 years of their life on their phone.
But now they’ve taken things to a new level. When my brother-in-law told me you could have a realistic, vocal conversation with ChatGPT, I had to experience this for myself. So I downloaded the app.
The weather is great. Meteorologists call it “fake fall,” when summer weather, for whatever reason, undergoes what the local weatherman called an “identity crisis.”
The algorithms are doing everything now. You interact with algorithms every day in the modern world. Whenever you apply for a mortgage, or a job, buy something on Amazon, stream a movie, watch TV, adjust your thermostat, you are using an algorithm.
Hate turns your insides black. Hate shrinks your heart. Hate will make you clinically depressed. You will lose weight. Your teeth and hair will fall out.