Lori Duff Writes
Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Schrodinger’s corpse. For those of you unfamiliar with Schrodinger’s cat, in a vastly oversimplified nutshell, Erwin Schrodinger was a quantum mechanist who proposed a thought experiment in which a hypothetical cat is in a box with a hypothetical vial of poison gas. The vial of gas is…
I’ve always been easily startled. I think it’s a function of how deeply engrossed I get in whatever I’m doing. I’m truly not in the room that I’m in, not mentally. Details around me disappear and all I can see is what I’m doing. Sometimes it’s not even what I’m doing, just what I’m thinking. …
Most of the time, I think we should tell the truth. But not always. And, if done correctly, I think you can lie a lot and still consider yourself an honest person. Yeah, I’m doing it. I’m writing an article In Defense of Lying. If you disagree with me and say you don’t lie, well,…
My husband and I were watching Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you’ve never watched MST3k, please remedy that right away. It’s basically stupid: the conceit is that it’s the future and this guy is kidnapped by evil scientists who put him on a spaceship and see if they can break his brain by showing him…
Lately, I’ve been grateful for the existence of readily available fabric. I was lying in bed, between snoozes of the alarm clock, appreciating how warm and cozy and comfortable I was. I don’t have expensive sheets[1] but they are cotton, cool and smooth to the touch. In that twilight, where my brain has not yet…
For my twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, as well as a milestone birthday for my husband that happens in the same year, I want to go to Italy and eat my way from one end to the other. I want to have first-hand opinions on the wine, bread, and pasta; northern vs. southern cuisine. I want to…
I’m an empty nester, but not all the way empty. My children still come home often enough that there’s cause to keep their bedrooms available for them. My daughter was home most of this past summer, and my son came home for what felt like fifteen minutes. My husband is home all the time. And…
I have a writing friend who, in addition to other things, is obviously highly intelligent and insightful. She mentioned, at the last collective of writers[1] that she was working on a romance book. She said this with her head hung, obviously embarrassed by her non-lofty choice of topics. This led to a vigorous discussion about…
I have a cross-stitched rendering of the Serenity Prayer on my wall in my office. The Serenity Prayer, in case you don’t know goes like this: God grant me: The Serenity to accept the things I cannot change The Strength to change the things I can, and The Wisdom to know the difference. As prayers…
We’re gonna have to do something about the pace at which time is whipping by. I’ve got, by my estimate, about 178 years’ worth of things left on my to-do list and, if you can believe actuaries, only about thirty years left in which to get them done. Which makes me think that I need…