Author Archives: aliceinbloggingland

Not everyone writes, or writes much.  Writing is not the distinctive expression of the self, for everyone.  But I am close to some people whose voices in writing capture who they are, and their writing moves me, more than their … Continue reading →

U is for Um I just looked at my blog statistics.  94 people checked my blog yesterday.*  But who are these people?  Few leave “likes” or messages.  I do not understand the blogging world.  I am in it only reluctantly.  … Continue reading →

Torpor, noun:  a state of physical or mental inactivity; lethargy. Yep.  My pandemic go-to state.  It’s also a good word, that excites me a little and makes me less torporous.  Torporish?  Neither are actual words.  But this word play energizes … Continue reading →

I keep seeing articles that assert that what we are experiencing is grief.  I resist, feel growly.  I don’t like being told what it is I’m feeling.  And this doesn’t feel like grief. Disorientation, foggy headedness, lethargy, mixed with gratitude … Continue reading →

What new can be said for being stuck at home?  Everyone’s commenting on it.  The quarantine blogs could become part of a historical record of this time.  Hard to write about something you’re in the middle of. The days consist … Continue reading →

The Narragansett Indians called it Quacumpaug Pond, the settlers called it Schoolhouse Pond because they built a schoolhouse to assimilate the Indians there.  I can’t find the meaning of Quacumpaug on the Internet.  My second cousins were members of a … Continue reading →

Named for a Narragansett word meaning “abounding in bats,” Pausacaco (pronounced paw-sah-KAW-ko) is a wooden lodge with a wide, inviting porch overlooking a small lake.  My grandfather’s two brothers and five other men built the lodge in 1906.  In the … Continue reading →

The gears are shaped like jagged O’s. We lost one of our Spirograph wheels, the third one from the corner, the best size.  Spirograph engrossed me for hours at a time, and losing a wheel was a deep disappointment. I … Continue reading →

When I was eight or nine, I wrote and illustrated a full-color, stapled-bound book entitled Nosie Nellie.  Nosie Nellie and her friend Naughty Nancy, drawn wearing skirts and large bows in their hair, are confident, opinionated girls—empowered, one might say.  … Continue reading →

L and M It’s hard to write during a pandemic.  I am skipping days.  The deaths are getting closer.  A student’s grandmother.  A scholar I met last fall at a conference and have known in an online forum for years.  … Continue reading →