Archive for October 2017
Just the kind of conversation I want before sunrise
Nothing to see here. Just a pre-sunrise conversation with my eight-year old daughter, Clara, about what the word “stillborn” means, followed by a flood of tears over the fate of Elizabeth Adams, the stillborn daughter of Abigail Adams. I love parenting.
Read MoreThe men’s restroom: All I want is a little consistency, please…
I appreciate and embrace consistency in all things. Find the fastest, most accurate, most efficient, least expensive way of doing something, and repeat as often as needed. This is why men’s restrooms infuriate me. Almost all men’s restrooms contain urinals. This is good. They actually allow for the fastest, most efficient use of the restroom.…
Read MoreEarning his keep
This cat pushes everything he can find onto the floor. He’s broken bowls and glasses and picture frames. He’s toppled laundry baskets off counters and shoved laptops of tables. He eats our plants. He has found a way to open kitchen cabinets and climb inside. Once inside, he pushes the contents of the cabinet out…
Read MoreWhen will she die?
Sometimes I listen to a despicable person – politician, commentator, talk show host – and find myself compelled to run to Wikipedia to find out how old the person is, hoping that he or she is at least ten years older than me, thus reducing the chances that I will have to share the planet with…
Read MoreTwo word horror story
A reader on Goodreads asked me to write a two sentence horror story. Here is what I wrote: She cried out from the laundry room. “You didn’t dry my sweaters, did you?” All agreed that it was terrifying.
Read MoreFree Dive
This is both fascinating and bizarre. Watching the video of this man free dive to the bottom of the deepest pool in the world is both mind boggling and incredible, and yet: 1. I don’t understand the desire to free dive. I cannot fathom (see what I did there?) the desire to swim as deep…
Read MoreJulian Edleman changes everything!
Each month my children each receive a free book from PJ Library, an organization that sends free books that celebrate Jewish values and culture to Jewish families across America and Canada. Last week the newest books arrived. They tend not to be my favorite stories. Perhaps part of the problem is that I’m not Jewish,…
Read MoreSibling love is a strange and varied thing
Sometimes they want to kill each other, and sometimes they aggressively ignore each other, but more often than not, there are days when I walk into the room and find this and my heart breaks. Even if my son has his shoe in his mouth.
Read MoreComplacency kills.
Regardless of what I am doing or have ever done, I have always asked myself this question: “Who is better than me?” Whether I was managing a McDonald’s restaurant, sitting in a sociology class, writing a novel, playing golf, performing onstage, or teaching multiplication to fifth graders, I’m always looking around and asking, “Who is…
Read MoreLyric Problems: Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”
Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2016 hit song “Call Me Maybe” was a favorite of mine during the summer and fall of that year as it packed floors at weddings where I was working as a DJ. But I have one problem with the song. One niggling complaint. The chorus of the song goes: Hey I just…
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