Dear Readers,

If you’ve ever been tubing, attached to the back of a speed boat you will know this feeling. You’re on the ridge of the wake, high up, you have to hold on extra tight. You don’t know whether your tube is going to slide to the left or fall to the right but it’s imminent. It’s like waiting for a balloon to pop or that feeling when you’re about to fall into cold water or rip a wax strip off your arm pit. It’s purgatory. The change is pending. This is where I am right now with my writing. I’m on the brink of a change and it’s time to slide left or fall right.

Thank you for being here, whether once or 104 times. The amount of love and support I’ve received for these pieces in the past two years has been incredible. It has buoyed me through immense anxiety at the start and most recently, through familial weirdness and unexpected life-altering sadness, through the forced patience of IVF. It’s helped me to speak things on the computer keyboard I couldn’t figure out how to say out loud, whether to myself, to anyone, to one of my girls. I’ve tried to be funny, I’ve tried to be emotive, I’ve tried to be helpful. I’ve planned how to help my most-challenged girls, I’ve pondered the arrival of my niece, I’ve spoken to family and I’ve spoken to strangers. I’ve attempted to garner more help for my beloved Baltimore. While writing these, I have both laughed at my own thoughts and cried at my own heart.

My next venture is to take some of this writing and to try to self-publish a book. Would you read it, even if you’ve already read it here? This is me, putting this down on paper, that I will work toward a book. Accountability.

Now, I still have this domain (I just paid to re-up for another year) and I want to actively write new things so I will aim to post at least once per month, always on a Friday. If you have a guest blog you’d like to post, please reach out!

So, thank you for your support. Below are some of my favorites in case you were late to the party or are looking for something to do on your work computer, other than work. Please, as always, comment, share, spread! I love having you readers and as humans in this world.

So much love to you,

Amandy

 

Dichotomy (yoga + West Baltimore)

Five Strangers Walk into a Bar (written by Shar)

A Hard Thing We’re Not Supposed to Talk About (IVF)

Ms. Renee Means Peace (Renee Buettner)

Dear Baltimore (a letter to the flawed city I love)

That Karaoke Singer from Hon Bar (about Bobby Ray, astronomer, numerologist, karaoke singer)

Perspective: Baltimore/Amandy (photos)

Anxiety and the Advice I’m Not Legally Qualified to Give (anxiety and healing)

Paint Baltimore Kind (ways to help Baltimore’s peeps and streets)

The Rose that Grew From Concrete (a Dear Young Lady letter)

Dear Niecephew Part II (a letter to Emma, when I didn’t know she was Emma)

Two Months is Not Enough (Dear Young Lady letter)

Humans of Hampden (photos)

A Modest Proposal: Compulsory Teaching (my idea of a societal advancement)

Be a Doer/Dreamer Like Erricka Bridgeford (about leader of Baltimore Ceasefire)

30 for 30 (30 thoughts near my 30th birthday)

Let There BMore Love (ways to help Baltimore)

Dear Young Lady (yes, another one)

Everything I Shouldn’t Have Known When I Was a Kid, I Learned from Seinfeld (implied)

To Gram, Mary Lou Lucskowski Lutz Papa James (a letter to my grandmother)

The World is Too Much With Us (commentary on the absurdity of the 21st century)

The Local’s Guide to Baltimore (what to do in Charm City)

Reinvention (repurposing of all kinds)

Welcome to Hampden, Hon: Old, Weird, Fancy (a present and past guide to my neighborhood)

A Sense of Place (being there, there)

Gratitude (no eye rolls)

An Urban Education Wishlist (what I want for our schools)

A Week in White Girl Hair (when all in one week I had cornrows, let my kids cut my hair in my classroom, and donated 12 inches to Pantene Beautiful Lengths)