Fiction and Essays

jmilanes dot com essays and short stories

[jmilanes]

Introduction

Dare to wear the foolish clown face.

- Frank Sinatra

Hopping from topic to topic will probably NOT be the norm here. I’ll try to keep posts to one topic at a time – unlike this post which is a smorgasbord of what’s to come.

A lot about writing these posts and sharing is for myself, but if you want to come along for the ride, you’re more than welcome subscribe to my page for notifications on new posts. Please feel free to post comments, thoughts, ideas, or anything you’d like to share from your experiences and memories that these posts generate.

When appropriate and available, I’ll also share pictures. My dad loved to take pictures and there are plenty out there. Unfortunately, I’ve lost some because of so many of my moves. Hopefully I can find the gems. Thanks for reading!

Introduction

Dare to wear the foolish clown face. I.I’m a language nerd.Language is fascinating to me. We tell each other stories and connect (or disconn

[jmilanes]

Half fares and half-baked ideas

Things don't always have valid reasons for why they are.

Let's talk a little bit about one of my first lessons regarding the wacky ways in which government sometimes works. This lesson came from ninth grade while attending Brooklyn Technical High School.

It was my first experience in having to stand up for myself where I found rules to be unreasonable and didn't make any justifiable sense.

I was 14, awkward, dorky, and incredibly uncomfortable in my skin and unable to stand up for myself. A lot of it had to do with being told to accept authority and to not question those in power.

Half fares and half-baked ideas - a little light.

I had a conversation with my son a while back about how sometimes we come across some policy or rule that just doesn’t seem to make sense. S