Lori Duff Writes
For reasons I do not care to get into right now (though trust me, everyone is fine now) I have spent a lot of time in hospital waiting rooms lately. These are odd little microcosms of society that have not been studied sufficiently by trained sociologists. Therefore, I took it upon myself to make some…
I Think I’m Funny I have this absolutely non-humorous, borderline boring, slightly academic theory on humor, which is that laughter is the pinnacle of mindfulness. That is, when you are laughing, you are entirely in the moment in which you are laughing, and completely unaware of physical and emotional pain or distress, or anything else…
For years now, I’ve been writing these columns and you’ve been hearing a lot of things I’ve had to say. I am not sure I will ever run out of rants. My opinions have changed over time as my horizons have expanded and my viewpoints have matured. I’ve found myself saying some things that I…
In light of record high pollen counts and the glue that has become every bodily fluid I produce, I thought this article from 2016 was worth republishing. I have a superpower. I can take ordinary grocery items, like lettuce and milk and Little Debbie Snack Cakes, and turn them into pounds and pounds of pollen-induced…
This is what happens when I try to hold my book because of my Essential Tremor. As if I weren’t physically awkward enough, as if my weird, clunky walk weren’t enough, and my graceless inability to walk through a doorframe without hitting one side or another with my shoulders weren’t enough, I have been…
I am a big fan of indoor plumbing. I am NOT a fan of indoor plunging. There is nothing more gag-producing than jamming a wood-and-rubber plunger into a poo filled toilet and slurping it up and down to unclog a septic system. Especially if the poo in question is not your own. Seriously, people. Did…
I have always looked like I came from Russian peasant stock. I have a face that looks like it was carved from a potato. My broad shoulders were designed for swinging a pickaxe through Siberian permafrost to get at root vegetables, and my hips are wide enough to bear a whole passel of fat babies. …
About ten years ago, I had eyeball surgery which implanted contact lenses right in front of my retinas. This allowed me to go glasses free for a long time. Recently, however, my left eye decided to act up and prevent me from reading street signs in smaller fonts. So I went to the eye doctor…
On Saturday, November 11, 2017, I had the immense privilege of participating in the “Book an Author” event at the Milton Literary Festival. This was a sort of “speed dating” for books event, in which authors had three minutes to pitch their life’s work to an audience of book buyers. This is a reasonable approximation…
Honestly, the day started out just fine if you don’t count the fact that I had to set my alarm for 6 on a Saturday morning. I drove my son to his rehearsal at the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, drank coffee and wrote in the audience, and was generally peaceful, if a little sleepy. …