Dear 2 Rules Readers, Friends, and Followers: As you know, we make a big deal about self-care here. It’s so important to our work as writers and teachers, but also to being ourselves, and being able to be the best versions of us that we can. And a number of weeks back, some things happened that…
Category: Another World Within
Bach & Beethoven: Oops I Made Rock Music
I have this friend I really like messing with. He’s brilliant in his areas–math, economics, music, athletics, computer pro… He has a lot of areas. But I can still occasionally find ways to put one over on him. One of our overlapping interests is music, but he is much more into rock music than I…
Lazy Weekend (Caturday Questions)
Normally, I Tie the Comic to an Essay on a Literary Theme. For Example, I Could Tie this to Character Motivation or the Untapped Potential of the Lazy Weekend in Most Works of Literature Not this time. Have a good lazy weekend, everyone. Unless you work in food or retail in which case I just…
Homework: A Love Story
As an elementary school teacher, I have never been a fan of homework. During my first year teaching, my Grade-Level Lead Teacher handed me the spelling worksheets and multiple-choice reading activities to send home with the kids each day. I hardly looked at them, and definitely hated grading them. The students with high test scores,…
The Sandman and Cultural Appropriation
I’ve probably read the Sandman graphic novel series a dozen times. The last time I went through the whole thing was easily a dozen years ago. But if you ever have half an hour or so, we can sit down and I can tell you almost page for page what’s in it. Even the weird…
Reading is Fun (Caturday Questions)
People ask me what my favorite book is. Like most of you, I have a different answer every time. But more specific questions will get you more specific, and more stable,answers. What is the funniest book I’ve ever read? Moby Dick. Hands down. Nobody expects this answer. Big Cat, Little Cat Reading is Fun… Right?…
An Archaic Concept of Me: Mutual Proposal
We are moving into Delivery 8, where we discover more about the early adult life of the fictional characters, Aleena and Stuart. If you prefer to read contiguously from the opening sentence forward, here are links to the previous 7 deliveries onto 2 Rules of Writing. https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/an-archaic-concept-of-me/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/an-archaic-concept-of-me-2/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/to-the-future-where-we-know-ourselves/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/archaic-concept-of-me-keep-going-son/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/mindfulness-archaic-concept-5/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/archaic-concept-of-me-shoulder-energy/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/forget-it-an-archaic-concept-of-me-delivery-7/ Where we began,…
Falling in Love with Long Reads Again
An uneventful day at the office. “Let’s go for lunch. I’ve got something for you,” said Wen, calling from her windowless cubicle to mine. “I double-subscribed it for twelve months,” she handed me a stack of The New Yorker, packed in clear plastic bags. “Hope you don’t mind – they’re all previous issues.” I clearly…
Make it New! (Caturday Questions)
There’s a saying that’s almost exactly 30 years old that states that nostalgic repetition in pop culture follows a 30 year cycle. Hence, The Sandman came out on Netflix about 30 years after the comic finished its run in the mid-90s. And the Addams Family film (1991) came out just shy of 30 years after…
Night Fishing in Guinea-Bissau
My London-based company posted me in an isolated country in West Africa called Guinea-Bissau to buy shipload quantities of cashew nuts valued at millions of dollars from sellers of the commodity. I had to learn Portuguese fast, get the feel of the market, and find out the government requirements for the export of raw cashew…