Archive for February 2011
I was naked onstage
I am quite susceptible to hypnosis. This trait may run in the family. My mother, a smoker for more than twenty-five years, quit cold turkey after one hypnosis session. I discovered my susceptibility to hypnosis after attending hypnosis shows twice in my life. Both times I have been brought on stage, successfully placed under hypnosis,…
Read MoreNothing like an ominous hammer cock
I watch a lot of partial movies on AMC while I am working out. Depending on the elliptical machine, I often have closed captioning automatically turned on for the film. It turns out that the captioning can be quite amusing, particularly when it comes to captioning the sounds in a movie. How a deaf person…
Read MoreDating in Stop & Shop
When I was in high school, I would take girls to the local Stop & Shop on a first date. When I told this to my wife, she asked what I would do on these dates. A reasonable question, but I didn’t have much of an answer. It was never anything terribly special. We would…
Read MoreUS Weekly a mystery to me
This was the magazine cover that I was staring at yesterday while waiting in line at the supermarket. Here’s the good news: I did not recognize the woman on the front cover who was “obsessed with being thin” (though I suspect that she might not actually be a celebrity). I learned that someone named Kim…
Read MoreI can’t die at my desk unnoticed. Oh well.
Teaching isn’t the easiest or the best paying job, but I have always wanted to teach and am happy that I chose this profession. In addition to the daily joys that it brings, I have found some of my best friends through teaching. Colleagues, the parents of students and even former students, now all grown…
Read MoreWhen your country is one thousand years old, things can get quite complicated
With the sale of my new book to a British publisher, I felt it was time to finally understand one of the great mysteries of life: United Kingdom versus Great Britain versus England: What’s the difference? Where in hell does Canada and the Falkland Islands fit?
Read MoreTechno-toddler
My two-year old daughter, who cannot pronounce the letter L in the word please and is not potty trained, picked up my wife’s iPhone and brought it over to the shower door. She held it up to my wife, who was taking a shower, and said, “Animals.” “Alright, my wife said. “If you can find…
Read MoreThis ain’t my childhood library
When I was a kid, my local library did not look like this: Since when did libraries become equipped with germ-laden toys for children to fight over while their parents nervously attempt to negotiate the delicate balance between encouraging sharing and allowing an ill-mannered ruffian to run roughshod over their kids’ rights to the…
Read MoreMy house is a veritable palace
I was complaining about my house yesterday. The first floor windows are dreadful and in serious need of replacement. It was so cold in my office that I can see my breath. Then I was reminded that I grew up in a six-room, one-bathroom house with four brothers and sisters. Until I moved into my…
Read MoreEvery boy loves Nessie
I will be extremely upset if incontrovertible evidence of the Loch Ness Monster is unearthed after I die. Every boy on the planet wants the Loch Ness Monster to be real. The latest string of Nessie sightings, including this new photo, only serves to frustrate me more. Is it never sunny at a loch? This…
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