Reporter James R. Hagerty has written more than 800 obituaries for the Wall Street Journal; therefore, he knows what it takes to write a life story. No one is better at telling your story than yourself and you can start writing right away. On this blog, I have a goodbye category, in which I write brief tributes to the people I had known. I also have a personal category, in which I write about my life. This blog is my obituary as well.

I read Timothy Goodman’s corny-ass love in Paris in one sitting. He’s right. The love is corny as fuck, but his prose saved the story. His writing is concise and lyrical. The art part is hard to read though. I skipped that.

Simone Stolzoff’s The Good Enough Job comes at the critical moment of my own career evaluation. I fell into the conventional wisdom of following my passion. I believed that if I worked hard at what I loved to do, I would become successful. I spent over 20 years of my career from a web designer fresh out of college to work my way up to become a design director. Now I am on the brink of losing everything. A director title doesn’t mean anything. I have come to accept that money, power, and privilege overrules passion. I am in the process of separating my identity from my job and my self-worth from my output. Fortunately, I am not alone and Stolzoff has the proof through his interviews with people who have burned out, become disillusioned, and find meaningless in what they do. It is an essential book for anyone who wants to reclaim their life from work.

We work too hard.
We’re too tired
To fall in love.
Therefore we must
Overthrow the government.

We work too hard.
We’re too tired
To overthrow the government.
Therefore we must
Fall in love.

Rod Smith

Because I am their daughter my body is not mine.
I was raised like fruit, unpeeled & then peeled. Raised
to bleed in some man’s bed. I was given my name
& with it my instructions. Pure. Pure.

& is it wasted on me? Every moment I do not touch
myself, every moment I leave my body on its back
to be a wife while I go somewhere above the room.

I return to the soil & search. I know it’s there. Buried
shallow, wrapped in rags dark with old & forgotten rust,
their discarded part.
Buried without ceremony,
buried like fallen seeds.

I wonder about the trees: Date palms veined
through the fruit with the copper taste of cutting.
Guavas that, when slit, purple dark as raw meat.

I have to wonder, of course, about the blood orange, about the pomegranate, splayed open, like something that once was alive & remains.

Safia Elhillo

I strongly agree with the conservative justices on college admissions. Race should not play a role in education. All kids deserve an equal opportunity. They can’t be discriminated for their race. What Harvard had done to Asian-American students was discrimination and shameful. By helping one race and hurting another, Harvard has put an end to affirmative action.

The admissions processes at George Mason University have not considered race as a factor since 2007. Read the university’s statement regarding the Supreme Court’s decision on college admissions.

Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamers,
Bring me all of your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.

Langston Hughes

I am so glad that Xuân chose to join the swim team this summer. He didn’t do so well in his first competition because he kept looking over the other lanes to see where the other kids were at. I reminded him to focus on his own lane and to get to the finish line first. He seemed to take my advice on his first freestyle competition and he finished first.

This seven-year-old kid is a true athletic. From ice skating to skiing to scootering to swimming, he just puts his heart into and does it. He likes to play video games as much as his older brothers, but he also continues to be active. I really hope that he will stick with swimming. I don’t need him to be great. I just want him to stay active. In my book, he is already already a swimming star.

Females rappers exploit sex as well. Hood Hottest Princess is Sexyy Red’s soundtrack to PornHub videos. Back up by pounding productions, Red gets freaky and filthy as fuck on “Mad At Me,” “Strictly for the Strippers,” and “Pound Town 2” with Nicki Minaj. No crime in that, I suppose. Most of her lyrics are too explicit to be quoted, but I find her some of punchlines hilarious. On “I’m The Shit,” she talks shit, “Bitch, you ain’t tough, I’ll slap you in the head / How you sleepin’ on me? You ain’t even got a bed.”

Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor —
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn’t elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That’s how it is sometimes —
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.

Dorianne Laux