COVID Is Not “Just a Cold”

You’ve probably noticed that I didn’t write as frequently in 2021. While I’m still active on Twitter, blog posts take more time and energy for researching, gathering data and links, and crafting the right words (and just the right amount of snark). For nearly a year, though, my energy has been sapped - by long COVID. My husband and I, who have worked in-person for the duration of the pandemic, became ill with COVID in late February 2021. We had different sets of symptoms, but thankfully, it ...
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The Long Night

Winter is the time of year I hate the most. The months of January, February, and March feel like an eternity to me every year. The world is dark, the landscape barren, the air so cold it seeps into my bones. It feels like a long, sleepless night where all I can do is count the hours until dawn. I was born in the summer, when cookouts, water sports, and crab picking are in full swing, and when the world is warm and blossoming. I suppose that's why winter, with its itchy wool sweaters, b...
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Common Sense

As I write this, I am at the end of a quarantine resulting from a member of my household needing to get tested for COVID-19 due to symptoms similar to a cold. The test came back negative, which is an immense relief. As I watch the COVID-19 statistics for Maryland and the U.S. getting worse by the day, I know that this probably won't be the last time my family will go through this. As Ned Stark's famous line from Game of Thrones goes, "winter is coming." Common sense told us that this was ...
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Housing is a Human Right

I recently read Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. It was an eye-opening read that made abundantly clear the link between housing and the downward spiral into lifelong poverty that is a reality for many Americans. Desmond's firsthand accounts shine a light on what poverty looks like, how easy it is to fall into, and how impossible it can be to extricate oneself from it. Most importantly, his writings reveal the central role of housi...
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Screaming Into a Pillow

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks in Howard County. I’m starting to think I need to get a special pillow just for screaming. Does anyone else find themselves doing a lot of that lately? We had County Council Chair Deb Jung muting Councilman Opel Jones in a council Zoom meeting, the technological equivalent of walking over and putting her hand over his mouth. I can’t say I’ve ever seen Board of Education Chair Mavis Ellis ever do that for one of Christina “DeVos” Small’s lengthy sighing di...
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