LIFE IS SHORT | Autobiography as Haiku

LIFE IS SHORT | Autobiography as Haiku

Discussion Policy
Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.
Sunday, June 12, 2005

(Rebecca D'Angelo - For The Washington Post)
I type my 3-year-old son's preschool class newsletter. HAPPY PARENT'S DAY! reads the text at the top of the handwritten draft. I edit the text as HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!, type the rest and submit for duplication. My phone rings. "You need to change the word back to PARENT'S." "Why?" "Inclusiveness, someone might be insulted." "Like who?" "Well, families with two fathers." "What about Father's Day?" "We can't say that either." "Aren't you insulting the mothers and fathers?" "It's our policy." I tell the school they can white-out my disrespectful words and my child's registration for the fall semester.

David Becker

Kensington

Post-Ivy League, post-investment bank, pre-grad school. I'm comfortably nestled in the quarter life crisis void where every vodka and tonic chips away at my savings and the line, "I'm Raj, 26, and unemployed" is met with muted smiles and calculation of my marital market value, determining if I can provide the BMW, basset hound and MTV-crib-style house by 2011. Being Sri Lankan, not dark enough to be black, not light enough to resemble European, leaves me in genetic No Man's Land with the ladies. Love is blind, but not to income or skin pigment.

(Rebecca D'Angelo - For The Washington Post)
I figure there is always reincarnation.

Rajeev Sreetharan

Bethesda

Find a way to give insight into your life in under 100 words. Authors of selected entries will be notified and paid $100. Send text (accompanied by a home phone number) via e-mail (lifeisshort@washpost.com), fax (202-334-5587) or mail (Style, Life Is Short, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071).



© 2005 The Washington Post Company