Archive for June 2015

He might need a few chores to darken his days a bit.

Last night I took the stage at the Music Hall in Williamsburg and won another Moth GrandSLAM.  There are few things more thrilling in my life than having the opportunity to take a Moth stage and tell a story, and Moth audiences are the kindest and most generous audiences in the world. The support and…

I taught my three year-old son to pee on a tree yesterday. We started potty training him late last week, and remarkably, he’s nearly trained already. It took us months to fully train our daughter, Clara, so I feel like the universe is bringing balance to things with Charlie. We are grateful.  I took the…

I don’t get manicures and pedicures. I realize that some men do, but according to an industry study of nail salons in 2013, only 3% of their clients were men. So in general, men don’t get manicures and pedicures.  Like the wearing of makeup, I think it’s kind of crazy that men and women have these…

On the last day of the school year, I receive a lot of cards and letters from students expressing beautiful and hilarious and occasionally insightful messages to me. This year I received a card from a student that said this: “I think the reason you’re such a great teacher is that you are basically the child…

When a boy plays sports well, we say that he is athletic. We refer to him as an athlete or a jock.   We a girl plays sports well, we refer to them as athletes, too, but I also hear them frequently referred to as “sporty.”  I hear my female students refer to themselves and their friends as sporty all the…

I can’t stand not knowing something that I want to know. While growing up, I didn’t have an enormous amount of support when it came to academics, but my saving grace was my inherent curiosity. I wanted to know stuff. I was obsessed with learning. This was much harder in the 1980s without the internet.…