TWISP | This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, January 26 – Sunday, February 1, 2015

January 26, 2015

I watched the State of the Union address with my father on Tuesday at an undisclosed location. (Not with the cabinet member who had the “football,” and I am not disclosing only because it was someplace other than Saint Paul.)

Walks with the Chowhound

January 25, 2015

Selby is a chowhound. an inveterate, unrelenting, willfully indiscriminate gastronome of Saint Paul street food. naturally he is named after the street where he lives, Selby avenue, and naturally, when I come to dog sit him, we commence our journeys from that haunt of celebrated eateries, dine-ins, and dessert stops.

Empty Promise

January 25, 2015

The world is filled with empty promises.
it’s like when you tell a person you love them,
and they say it back,
but after that
y’all never speak again.

Five Things to Love about Saint Paul from Someone Who Moved Here from Somewhere Else

January 25, 2015

I know this sounds ridiculous: to love the speed by which one can get across town. Big deal, right? Yes. It is. You have no idea. Prior to moving to Saint Paul in 2008, I lived in Seattle, a city with an enormous and ever-worsening traffic problem.

The Drive

January 25, 2015

Not wanting to alarm my husband and infant son, in case they’ve fallen back asleep, I don’t call. I don’t even text. But I do take a picture with my camera-phone, because I need proof that I’ve done it, that I’m actually here: sitting in a 2005 toyota Matrix, outside the Saint anthony Park library. this is incredible.

In Praise of Aging

January 25, 2015

In praise of buses rattling through the streets
In praise of passengers jostling for a seat
In praise of a transfer I didn’t need to buy
In praise of snow falling from the sky, and my down coat
Bought secondhand but warm

Silverheels

January 24, 2015

It was my mom’s first marriage proposal. At eight, she was the older woman. George was only six. After hasty consideration, Mom turned him down. As she explained to her mother, she couldn’t marry George. He liked carrots. She didn’t.

Photograph

January 20, 2015

The photo had sat on the windowsill for the last twenty years. It had borne the sun’s ultraviolet tentacles until they sucked the ink from each pore. The image was that of the first child, a promise of greatness and potential to be cultivated.

TWISP | This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, January 19 – Sunday, January 25, 2015

January 19, 2015

Even though the Saint Paul Winter Carnival is creeping up on us, our atmosphere is making its march toward spring. How is this? The calendar still says “January."

Cold

January 16, 2015

The midnight sky is bright with the light of new snow. Rooftops have gone missing.

January 28th 2015: Jessica Lopez Lyman presents “Crossing the Blue Wall” at the Lowertown Reading Jam

January 12, 2015

The “blue wall” is the impervious police/military state that brings destruction and injustice. Recently, we have seen resistance to the violence of the blue wall in the United States through the Black Lives Matter movement springing forth in Ferguson, New York, Oakland, and other places across the country.

TWISP | This Week in Saint Paul: Monday, January 12, – Sunday, January 18, 2015

January 12, 2015

I’m looking for a winter escape. I am not a snowbird, nor am I likely to find the space for a sunny vacation in an alternative climate. Alternative states of mind and heart are easily at hand.