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Turtle Boy - M. Evan Wolkenstein

Turtle Boy – M. Evan Wolkenstein

What a lovely review! Thank you so kindly! 🐢 🐢 🐢💛

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The Smells of Quarantine Shabbat

In high school, I was very choosy about my music. I loved the Beatles, first and foremost, because of their use of melody and harmony, humor and irony. I loved Simon and Garfunkel because of their lyrics, their poetry.

What I did not love was (what I called, at the time), “Noise music.” Too much screaming, distorted guitars, crashing drums drove me away.l

Then, I discovered…

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From Recreation to Re-Creation: How I learned to stop worrying and love my birthday

I used to be a nightmare on my Birthday.

I look chill, but I was shitting a brick about turning 40.

I’ve found fault with the finest hotels, I’ve been grouchy about gifts. You could assemble a comprehensive primer on How-not-to-be-a-gracious-receiver by assembling case studies from my birthdays.

Now, things are different. This morning, partway through my 44th birthday, I feel satisfied. Joyful.…

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Cutting the off the Tags

We all have quirks: the way we hike up our pants, the way we frequently forget the third button, the way we inspect some delicacy we’re eating as if to uncover the true mysteries of yumminess.

I have a few quirks of my own (all of the above and about a thousand more). Here’s another: sometimes, I don’t remove the tags. Case in point, I finally banished a threadbare wool vest to Goodwill and I had…

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#birth #fatherhood #life

Putting my toys/ties away

Yesterday, I bundled up 200 ties, some freshly pressed with the drycleaning tag still on, and put them way in the back of the storage closet: behind the still-boxed car-seat, behind the retired stereo equipment, even behind the Talmud set I haven’t looked at in fifteen years.

Doing this felt at once uncanny and yet resonant, the way something feels when you’ve done it before — but rarely. It…

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#fatherhood #growing up #parenthood #toys #transformers

A Letter to My Daughter (On the Occasion of Almost Being Born)

Dear Daughter,

This is the first letter I have ever written to you. This may also be the first letter you have ever received. One day, you will read this and it will seem weird to both of us that you are only about twenty feet away from me right now, as I sit here in my blue chair, and yet, you exist in a plane of existence I cannot comprehend, closer to the stars than to this living room. By the…

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Vulnerable Enough to Care

Once we read this morning’s news, we all had a choice to make this morning.

Go out into the world. Or go back to bed.

On the one hand, we would have been more than justified in going back to bed, pulling the blankets over our heads, and saying: “This world is just too much for me.”

But we have people who depend on us. Families. Students. Colleagues. Friends.

And so we put down our…

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bSometimes, it’s hard to know what to do with a day off.

I just completed my first five-day week of the school year, and come Friday, I was exhausted. Then, global-warming apocalypse hit the Bay Area and I spent 48 hours sitting in front of a fan, wearing a damp t-shirt.

By the time Labor Day came around, I was in no mood to do the usual labor-day things: drinking beer in the park, hiking under the Redwoods, lounging on the beach.

Way too drained.

I decided to do the one thing that is perfect for a day off: shrinking a sweater, obviously.

It’s hard to see how baggy it is, but trust me – I wouldn’t lie about such things.

In spring, I found a great

Gorgeous color and beautiful quality. Worth trying to make it work.

wool/cashmere sweater-vest for just a couple of bucks on eBay, and once it arrived, I found that it fit me like a floppy medium. I like a sweater-vest to be slim fitting, to layer cleanly under a blazer. I did some research online about whether a sweater can be shrunk, and after reading the received Lifehacker wisdom (and making the mistake of “reading the comments”), consulting a co-worker who insisted I was about to create a “barbie-sweater” and texting with my mother-in-law for advice, I decided to conduct the experiment, even if I might eff-up the sweater in the process.

Step 1: turn it inside out.

Supposedly, this will reduce color bleed.

Step 2: Put it in a pillow case.

To keep the evil elves away.

You’ve heard of “Where’s Waldo?” This is “Spot the Bottle of Detergent.” Super fun for all ages.

Step 3.

Look frantically around for your detergent.

I recommend doing the sweater in a load of laundry so as not to waste water on a vanity project. I also recommend dumping the bottle of detergent INTO the machine with the rest of the laundry, then texting frantically with your significant other, “IS IT IN THE HALLWAY” and “I TRIED THE HALLWAY ALREADY” and that sort of thing.

Then, find it in the laundry machine.

Step 4: HOT water and let ‘er rip.

Godspeed to you, gentle sweater, and good luck.

I felt guilty, at this point, like I was consigning an innocent sweater to certain doom.

Step 5: Stand in line for 45 minutes for a croissant.

Step 6: Nom.

Step 7: Return to Laundromat and put sweater in drying for 25 minutes, checking every six minutes.

Step 8: Rescue and apply sweater to body.

The results:

While the sweater still doesn’t fit “slim,” it has dropped about a size, and it is definitely not ruined. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but yes – it worked!

Have a sweater that’s too big?

Wait until next Labor Day, and GO FOR IT!

How to Shrink a Wool Sweater (Or How to Spend a Labor Day) bSometimes, it's hard to know what to do with a day off. I just completed my first five-day week of the school year, and come Friday, I was exhausted.

Saying Goodbye: Going all the way through with it.

Last week, I said goodbye to something I loved: my 2001 Aprillia Scarabeo scooter. I bought it about six years and 10,000 miles ago. I have had many adventures on it. It brought me to work and home each day, it took me to Fort Bragg on a somewhat absurd solo adventure, and it survived a couple of vandalism episodes: one, ruining the ignition, one ruining the trunk lock. Year after year, it was my…

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#goodbye #grief #grieving #loss

It's Not Enough to be Not-Islamophobic

We must be anti-Islamophobic. We cannot be Islam-ignorant.

This isn’t a good time to be a Muslim taxi driver in America.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance has expressed fears of increased attacks on Muslim drivers. As it is, taxi workers are 20 times more likely to be killed on the job. Now, they fear, Trump’s attempt to ban refugees from Muslim nations will likely incite additional violence against Muslim drivers. This stands to reason, as hate crimes…

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#islam #Koran #peace #Quran #tolerance #understanding