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A reader said

This just in, from Sarah Pazur, her reaction to Drop and Add: Drop and Add, a tender, ambitious novel set in rural Michigan, both celebrates and interrogates small-town America. We see Freeland through the eyes of Bailey’s protagonist, fresh-faced Eliot Becker, a recent PhD who accepts his first adjunct teaching job at Eastern Technical College. In this stranger-comes-to-town tradition, Bailey…

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A review of Drop and Add

from Goodreads, by Liane Cupferberg Carter College culture is an irresistible topic for humor, and Rick Bailey’s impeccable comic timing is on full display in his novel, DROP AND ADD. Fresh out of graduate school with a newly minted Ph.D., Eliot Becker has fantasies of engaging his students in Platonic dialogue. Instead, he’s hired as an adjunct at a technical college in rural Michigan to teach…

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Fava Fave

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Photo Op

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Have a Seat

It is an inconvenient truth that the ding comes when you least expect it and when you least want it. In this case, two dings. We’re driving down I-70, our second day on the road, expecting to arrive in Denver by late afternoon. It’s sunny and windy. It’s desert. It’s a divided road, two lanes in each direction. In the right lane, patches of old road repair on regular intervals growl under the…

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That Time of Year

We’re looking for him.  We find 130 Michael Smiths. I’m standing at the kitchen counter chopping an onion at eleven in the morning. We’ve just walked seven miles, on what feels like the first day of spring. Real spring: The sky is blue, the maples are in lush full leaf, the ferns along the east side of our house are burgeoning. The birds are so noisy even with these bad ears of mine I can hear…

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Drink Up

Years back a pipe burst in our apartment bathroom in San Marino. Three thousand miles away, we got the news: a trickle of water had found its way to Mr. and Mrs. Riccardi’s apartment below ours and continued to flow until the water to our unit was shut off completely. Repairs would be needed. It was an opportunity. Fix the leak, yes, and why not re-do the bathroom? That’s what we did. Of course…

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Coming Soon: Drop and Add, a novel

This book will be published August 2024. Advanced copies are now available for review. Think Richard Russo, Straight Man, only a new prof rather than an old one, an adjunct rather than a full prof, at a rural two-year school called Eastern Technical College (yup, ETC) not a private liberal arts college. In addition to trying to establish his place in the institution, Eliot Becker also tries to…

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Y'all Come

I have an email notification on my phone this morning: Nothing Last Forever. I read that right. So did you. Nothing Last Forever. As if we didn’t know that. Maybe the grammatical error is intentional, a nudge to get me to actually open the email rather than summarily delete it. If that’s the ploy, it worked. The message is an ad for masks, barriers against airborne pathogens carrying the…

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Left Right or Straight

Things come to a head on our way to Babbi (pronounced “Bob-bee”). I mean an argument. A spat.  Babbi is a chocolate manufacturer in Cesena. Their products are all over Italy. Wherever you find chocolate, you’ll find Babbi (which could be a Babbi slogan or tagline. “Ovunque trovi cioccolato, troverai Babbi”). We’re on our way home from Ravenna. Today we came to see, among other things, the Domus…

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Ride On

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Adventures in Offal

When I got up this morning, I asked Tizi, “Is there such a thing as a tripe hangover?” She said she didn’t think so.   We went out to dinner with our friends Mirko and Anna from the bookstore last night, to a new place in Rimini called Trattoria San Giovanni (old in Rimini, new to us). Mirko said they’re known for their tagliatelle, which were recently rated #2 by the Confraternita della…

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What to See in Rome

Of course you know what to see: the Sistine Chapel, the Colisseum, Piazza Navona. The question is how to organize your steps and stops to see as much as possible. Here are a few half-day walking/Metro itineraries. We were just there. We saw a lot. We ate successfully. Where you are, that’s your point of departure in Rome. I compiled these notes for a friend staying near Piazza del Popolo. I. To…

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Delicious Bologna

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Message Minus

I want my messages. I don’t want my messages.   When we come to Italy I take the Verizon SIM card out of my iPhone and insert a TIM SIM card. With TIM, a popular cell service provider here, I get unlimited calls, unlimited data, and unlimited messages for about $17 a month. And the price seems to be dropping. (A year ago I paid $21 a month for all that unlimited service. Someone should tell…

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About the Fat

These are full body yawns. I’m sitting in Serravalle’s church of Sant’Andrea with Tizi and her friend Alba. We’re here tonight for the Ash Wednesday service. As soon as we sit down, the yawning starts. Every muscle in my body participates, tensing, contracting. I lean back in the pew so the yawn can travel down the whole length of my body. It feels great, it’s borderline orgasmic to yawn like…

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Walk Around Rome

Very happy to be going back to Rome. We’re staying at a hotel called Tree Charme, on the edge of Trastevere. These two walks will take us to some of the standard highlights in Rome. Walking times are estimates. For example, from Bagni di Caracalla to the Coliseum is a 21 minute walk. In addition to these walks, we will plan a half day guided tour of the Vatican Museum (focus on the Sistine…