Valerie Mangion         

Saturday Morning, July 9, 1994 Last night I treated Ellis to a late dinner at a cheesy Mexican restaurant (intended) called “Pedro’s.” Pedro’s was voted the #1 Mexican Restaurant by Madison Magazine readers in a poll of “Best of” places. It’s a chain and the atmosphere isn’t appealing, but it was almost 9:45 after the movie (“Wolf” with Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer) and I’d eaten nothing all day but half a bag of microwave popcorn and two toffee squares. Pedro’s was n

There seems to be an element of synchronicity to my Journal Project. The way I choose a journal volume to select an entry from is totally random. But over and over I happen upon a passage that has special relevance to something going on in my current life or in the culture at large. Like the one below. Sexual Harassment has never been in the news the way it is right now. Every time I see #MeToo I think, wouldn't it just be a lot easier to have those few women who have never b

August 12, 1980, Tuesday Yesterday this old man — a white guy with white hair and three teeth (each about 1 1/2” long) got on the bus I was on, yelling “Keep your prayer life going, Folks, keep your prayer life going!” Then he stopped right at my seat. He was leering down my shirt, peering at me through little beady eyes, blind with their own self-satisfied “knowledge.” “Everything’s a puff of smoke…a puff of smoke. Do you know what a puff of smoke is? It just disappears — li