Archive for July 2011
Excellent first impression
Um… did you want me to come to your store? If so, when?
Read MoreNew business idea: Rorschach tee-shirts
My daughter does not know what a ninja is yet, nor is she able to discern the face embedded in my Ask a Ninja tee-shirt. Instead, she sees three separate blobs of white ink, and whenever I wear the shirt, she will stare at it until she has decided what the three blobs are. Most…
Read MoreSt. John Eyre Rivers is a single-minded jackass, but I love him just the same
Last Jane Eyre post. I promise. But I love this section of text. Jane has discovered that she is the heiress to a sizeable fortune in informs her cousin, St. John, that it is her intention to quit teaching in the one-room schoolhouse where she has been employed for several months. While St. John does…
Read MoreMy Moth story (or as close an approximation of the story as I can muster)
Hopefully the story that I told at the recent Moth StorySlam will one day be broadcast as one of their weekly podcasts, but many, many outstanding stories are told at Moth events every month around the country (including the StorySlam that I won), so it’s certainly not guaranteed. However, I’ve had many requests for me…
Read MorePopulating the bathroom with antiques and curiosities
“Don’t mind the dying cat,” my friend, Shep, said after directing me to the bathroom. I peed sitting down. I was afraid to turn my back on the thing.
Read MoreA sign of tattoos to come?
We like to reward our daughter with stickers because she likes them a lot. Unfortunately, whenever we give her one, she immediately lifts her shirt and sticks it to her belly for safe keeping. Then removing them at the end of the day (to avoid finding them in her hair in the morning involves coercion…
Read MorePoor Jane Eyre. She’s been hungry for a whole 19 hours.
Yesterday I declared Jane Eyre to be a superhero and specifically described her super power: Super powerful nostril and brow identification But all superhero fans know that with almost every super power comes a super weakness. Like Superman. The fact that he comes from the planet Krypton gives him his remarkable powers here on Earth,…
Read MoreNot-so-secret secrets to sleep
When people express envy about the fact that I only require about five hours of sleep a night and can often get by with less, I like to say that in addition to requiring less sleep, I am also a productive and efficient sleeper, and this plays an important role as well. This causes my…
Read MoreDid you know that Jane Eyre is a superhero? Or perhaps a mutant? Or an alien? Or maybe even a werewolf? But with super powers nonetheless.
It’s been a fine, fine novel so far, but the Victorian obsession with physical description, and more important, the assumptions that one could apparently draw based upon physical characteristics, has made JANE EYRE resemble a story about a superhero rather than an English governess. The girl can discern an astounding amount of information by just…
Read MoreMy obituary and eulogy instructions
In the off-chance that I die someday (an unlikely occurrence considering my super powers), I would like my obituary written and my eulogy spoken in the present tense. Nothing at all in the past tense, please. Nothing. Speak of me as if I were still alive. In one final fist shake of defiance at the institution…
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