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Blogging, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Culture of breast cancer, Diagnosis, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Facebook, Family, Hair, Jackson Browne, Language of Cancer, Little Feat, Lowell George, Memoir, Memoir, Memory, Mother Daughter Relationship, Music, Pink Ribbons, Sherman Alexie, Social Media, Soundtracks of our Lives, television, Van Morrison, Writers, Writing
breaking bad news & long distance love
Yesterday, I discovered Rendezvous, “a digital meeting place for the globally engaged, hosted by the International Herald Tribune.” As such, Rendezvous is a global tribe seeking “to inspire international discussion and intelligent debate that enlivens the global conversation.” Sounds like the perfect place for members of the Irish diaspora, scattered far and wide across the globe. People like me. While my circumstances…
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Bullying, Feminism, Goodfellas, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Mother Daughter Relationship, Toxic Workplaces, Workplace Bullying, Workplace Mobbing
burn out, bullying, and rekindling the flame
If you’ve never been on fire, then how can you burn out? Let me count the ways. Yesterday, or the day before, I wrote about bullying in the workplace. As an aside, I am beginning to lose track of the days, which reminds me I could always play a new card – Post Cancer Cognitive Impairment (PCCI); or just admit that I have…
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9/11, Belfast, Boston Marathon 2013, Damian Gorman, Facebook, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Memoir, Northern Ireland, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Heaney, Seamus Heaney, Soundtracks of our Lives, television, The Troubles, The Troubles
boston . . . without warning
Until September 11th, I had taken for granted the sense of security I felt as a woman who had traded in Northern Ireland for America. Foolishly, I had too quickly dropped my guard, almost forgetting anything can happen. I grew complacent and smug, confident that – unlike her mother – my American daughter would never have to look twice at an…
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words & music for st. patrick’s day every day
I’m a bit ambivalent about St. Patrick’s Day. What is it about March 17th that renders so many people Irish or some version of it that I don’t recall from living the first twenty-seven years of my life in Ireland. Everywhere I turn, there are people bragging about their Irishness, with plastic green bowler hats and/or T-shirts emblazoned with a…
