Do yourself a favor and the next time you’re close to Baptist Women’s Hospital, stop in and see the photos in the SnapShots exhibit. As I explained in my column Sunday, they are a collection of fascinating portraits of Memphis women at work, by 25 fascinating Memphis women, including everyone from Frances Hooks and Shirley Raines to Susan Stephenson and Regina Walker. (Do you know these women? Hooks is a longtime civil rights and community activist and wife of Dr. Benjamin Hooks, Raines runs the University of Memphis, Stephenson runs Independent Bank and Walker is an SVP of United Way.) Here’s my favorite, though: Nichole Howell, who struggles to read, and has come so far, by her friend Gayle Rose. What working women would you photograph, if you had the chance?

It happened again yesterday: I took off my coat and sat down to talk, and the woman I was meeting instantly said, “You got that sweater at Target, right?” Well, yeah, though I was reminded once again about my Target Ambivalence (TA). Yes, the clothes there are surprisingly fun (and wildly cheap), though the downside is that EVERYONE wears them. And though I also shop Macy’s, Dillard’s and some expensive boutiques that I feel too guilty to name, the truth is that I find myself at Target more often than not.

Has this happened to you? Should I work harder to disguise my TA, or should I just concede that Isaac, Michael Graves, and the others have got me in their spell? 

Who knew that my Sunday column on prayer — and how lame I am at it — would get so much response? And not just from friends at church, but from total strangers, and acquaintances who rarely read my column, much less tell me about it. Funny, too, that writing about prayer feels much more out there than a lot of other intimate subjects I tackle.

And since I’ve been so slow in posting this column, or much of anything else these days (why? see the December issue of skirt! in boxes and racks around town; click here for a list of distribution points), have a look below for some e-mailed comments, and add your own. How has prayer changed your life? Read the rest of this entry »

I’m embarrassed to tell you how often I go to Starbucks, and how much it feels like a treat every time. I don’t even really like coffee (unless it has lots of chocolate and whipped cream!), but I love hanging out, reading the paper, seeing folks I know as they come in.

So it took me a while to realize that my usual Starbucks has really changed. Most of the baristas are new, and they can’t remember my drink order, even after I’ve repeated it twice. They always ask my name, even though I come in frequently. And this morning at 8:10, the usually bustling parking lot was nearly deserted. Looks like caffeine addicts and Midtowners have noticed the change. And to top it off, they got my order wrong. Again.

Some things in life should stay the same. Bring back the best morning barista crew!

Usually on Sundays I write a blog post about the column I wrote for the paper today, and call it good. But today I want to weigh in on Wendi Thomas’s last two Sunday columns, about the yawning gap between what black people and white people believe is true about racism and discrimination. (If you haven’t read them, here’s last week’s, headlined “Black people’s reality rebuffed,” and here’s a link to the follow up column, “Blacks, whites divided on issues of racism.”)

Yes, this is difficult discussion to have, and yes, I wish we didn’t have to keep having it. But as Wendi’s column today points out, recent research shows that quite a few black people don’t believe things for black people are getting better, and that we are discouragingly far apart in how we perceive discrimination, advantage, and daily life.

Why does this matter to you? Read the rest of this entry »