minute by minute
I love the Labor Day holiday, that bittersweet transition from summer freedom back to school. My very first Labor Day after moving to California, I flew to Houston to meet my new baby cousin (he’s now a senior in high school). I hung with family, cuddled the baby, ate at chain restaurants, and annotated the…
in the time of the naked ladies
I get nostalgic every August, the anniversary of my move to California. August is when I packed up my Volvo, Foxy, and left the lovely lakeside town of Burlington, Vermont, where I’d lived for 6 years. I was 24 (such a kid!) and in an abysmal relationship that was looking like it would kill me…
do something: a brief history of my activism
Senior year of high school I was voted “Most Likely to Lead a Protest March,” for railing against the injustices of the dress code and writing articles for the school newspaper with titles like “Welcome to Prison.” But it wasn’t until college that I became a critical thinker capable of understanding why I’d struggled against…
open letter to my students
Dear sweet sometimes-clueless but mostly well-meaning students: I asked you to write open letters to anyone or anything. I pretty much gave you complete freedom; I mandated only a page limit and that you get real. I asked you to be vulnerable and raw. And (omigod) you did. You really effing did. You berated your roommate, DJ…
swimming with dahlia
She wears my old swimsuit, a blue one-piece with Snoopy, Woodstock, and rainbows printed all over it. 80’s chic. The pool is hot-tub warm. A benediction. Worth walking through the rain for. I chat with another mom and admire her three-month-old. The kid connection. Nothing has made me more friends than parenthood. Dahlia loves the…
Jess D Taylor 
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