WashingTina

I can't stop thinking about Malala . A little girl who wanted something as simple as an education. And yet, there is nothing simple about education. This I know.  I have education in my blood. My mother was a teacher and school board member. I was a teacher. I work for an education organization still. It's the family business, so to speak. Education has sustained me my entire life -- and yet, I never had to fight for it, worry about dying for it. It was always a given. Not so for Malala and girls like her in many corners of the world. This brave young woman -- still a child, already an activist -- has so frightened a bunch of grown men with her outspoken fervor for learning that she's now fighting for her life. Because with education comes so much more. Power, potential, freedom . . . and I guess that scares some people. Malala, even before the attack that left her fighting for her life in a British hospital, was a symbol for the rights of girls to go to ...

WH and I were at happy hour this evening when we happened upon one of the most annoying characters in the human species.  A character that I like to call the "Bourbon and Cigarettes* Girl."  This woman (not a girl, I suppose) is ever-present wherever people gather.  She is never alone, and she is always loud.  Always. She has that voice that sounds like she's been drinking a bottle of bourbon and smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.  Slightly gravelly, full of vibrato (and for that matter, bravado), deep, and throaty.  You know this woman.  She is the one at the Chinese restaurant, surrounded by friends (all of whom seem to have been striken mute or speak in inaudible tones barely above a whisper), regaling them (and all the tables around her) with full-volume stories of how, "oh.my.god. I was so drunk the other night and I was totally hooking up with this guy, but he didn't want to stay over, because I live in Arlington and he lives in Capitol Hill, ...