Mary Pezzulo

I can't describe how confusing and exhausting it is to lead a children's geography class in 2026. I planned to show them Ukraine, Palestine and Israel, all kinds of countries they'll see in the news, but the list goes on and on and ON...

Ecuador. Now ECUADOR?

Blogkeeping Notes For Winter 2026 This is not a normal post. This is just my every-couple-of-months boilerplate where I tell you where to find me when I'm not here and how to support my work.

The boilerplate as always. We're a day late and a dollar short on all our bills, so consider the tip jar or a Substack subscription. Thank you to my readers, more writing coming soon!
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Let's Talk About Forever Wars In The Middle East George Bush posed happily under a banner that said "Mission Accomplished," and I guess we thought that would be that.But that wasn't that. The wars went on for years and years.

Hi, kids! This is your old aunt Mary with a cautionary tale from the distant past! I am so very elderly, I was a teenager during Y2K and the 9/11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath. What’s Y2K? Ah, let’s save that history lesson for another day...
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She Treats Everyone Like A Mother "She always treats everyone like her mother," said the Sylph. Again, I feared. These children don't deserve to grow up in interesting times.

If only I didn’t constantly also feel as if the world was coming to an end.
If future historians write about this time, they will be liars if they don’t stress that it constantly felt as if the world was coming to an end.
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The Kingdom Of God Belongs To Children People were bringing children to Jesus, and they still do. The disciples rebuked them, as the disciples of Jesus still do.

Can you remember what it’s like to receive things, as a child?
Can you go back to when you were little before it all went wrong?

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Can The Blind Lead The Blind? A Lesson In Spiritual Sight Can a blind person guide a blind person? I don't know, can they? Will they not both fall into a pit? Why would they?

Can a blind person guide a blind person?
I don’t know, can they?

Will they not both fall into a pit?

I don’t know. Not necessarily. Why would they?

Blind people aren’t helpless.

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In The Here And Now Again and again, I try to write the way Northern Appalachia feels, here and now. I've got to find a way to crystalize the here and now.

In the here and now, it was the last day of February, but the thaw had begun in earnest and it was as sunny and muddy as springtime. The cemetery rolled on for acres and acres, dotted with the graves of Americans from three different centuries.
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Where Jesus Lives It was the most anxious of days. There is so much to be anxious about. If you are fortunate enough not to be American right now, I can't describe the

“Look at that conjunction!” I said, pointing up at Venus shining brightly right next to a crescent moon.

“That’s where Jesus lives,” said the girl with reverent confidence.
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Tell Them It Rained All Day I hoped to make it to the summer, to share food with my neighbors. I felt that it couldn't possibly be real life. Tell them it rained all day.

When I was a little girl, I didn’t know whether to say that I liked history or not.
I didn’t like to memorize names and dates. But I liked to hear about how people lived. I wanted to know what clothes they wore, and whether they got gifts at Christmas.
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To Be Yourself Instead I guess I should have expected everything to go wrong that afternoon. The art class I was teaching was supposed to be about Trompe L'Oeil, which means

I thought that being a mother was all that I was. I was supposed to be somebody who had a baby, and then another baby, and then anther until my oldest was having a baby of her own and I ascended to the rank of a grandmother.
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On Millennials, Purity Culture, And The Epstein Files When I say "purity culture," I'm not talking about the Catholic Church's actual teaching on human sexuality...

Every aspect of the culture I know, as a Catholic Millennial from Columbus, was touched by sexual abuse.
The way we dressed, the way we smelled, the things we got excited about, the sports teams, the movies and the activities. The Catholic guilt.
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Story Time: Through the Looking Glass, Continued A recording from Mary Pezzulo's live video

From tonight's Story Time: the next few chapters of "Through the Looking Glass!"

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A Word on the Apocalypse (here we go again) A recording from Mary Pezzulo's live video

A word for my Christian followers: "apocalypse" means "revelation," so we are having a sort of apocalypse just now.
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A Few Thoughts On Today’s News A recording from Mary Pezzulo's live video

Thoughts on the war, while standing on the bank of the Ohio.
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You Can't Have Both A Democracy and Billionaires ...which is how we got to the situation we're in.

Billionaires are a lethal cancer on democracy, because you can’t have a society where everyone is treated equally, if there are people that much more powerful than everybody else.

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Of Course, Mr. Rogers Was Political ...in which I get to talk about one of my favorite Television entertainers of all time.

I haven’t been so flabbergasted in a long time.

Of course Fred Rogers was political, and of course he shared his political opinions with children.
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Trump helps MAGA influencers flee Middle East war zone on private jet Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz, dogwalker Sarah Daither, former lobbyist Jay Footlik, and others managed to escape on a private plane thanks to the White House.

The White House has helped MAGA influencers escape the Middle East on a private jet while more than a million ordinary Americans are still trapped with no way out.

Children Are People. Treat them Like People. A child is a little disabled person, and they have rights.

This is why we need to remember that children are people. And if you’re not very fond of children and find yourself annoyed when you see them in public, it might help to remember that children are little disabled people.
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The Dentist Should Not Be A Luxury ...but this is America, so we can't have nice things.

Teeth are not supposed to be a status symbol. They’re bones. They’re necessary for your health. But in America, we don’t treat them that way. We treat them like luxury item. Of course we do the same for breasts, and hearts and lungs, and the epidermis.
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A Plea to My Fellow Harmless-Looking White Ladies ...from one to another.

And as with all terrorism, the only thing we can do is not give in to the terrorists.

If we back off now, they’ll surely win. But if we fight twice as hard, they might not.

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It could be like a mentally HEALTHY version of The Shining!

Awesome, I'll pack my art supplies!

Would you please be my ChatGPT contact?

May the worst man win.

And there you have it.

Bye bye, Crenshaw!

Give them boxing gloves and let them settle it like men.

*peeking out of the foxhole*

Right now we have to mow every couple weeks, but less often than we did when it was mostly grass. Clover naturally stays low. Lemon balm is edible, makes good tea, and doesn't grow very high, so that will be a nice addition. Who needs grass?