Urban Honking

I’m reading this book The Dog Stars by Peter Heller and it’s so sad I’ve already cried three times and I’m only a third into the book. He’s really got his finger on what would actually be sad about the end of the world (hint: dogs, also love). Even in the great The Stand it’s […]

My dad just successfully defended his thesis and was awarded an MFA in Creative Writing, which is awesome. What a scholar and a gentleman! Going back to school at age SEVENTY to learn how to write fiction after a lifetime in journalism. He had to take all these intense seminars where he read, like, Voltaire […]

On Saturday we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned, for three full hours we cleaned. The old man vacuumed every surface in our home including ceilings and walls. I scrubbed and scrubbed. Everything smelled of tea tree oil and vinegar. Then we cooked and cooked and cooked. We made tortilla soup and corn soufflé and a […]

We went out to the huge 1400 acre park by the river where snoopys are allowed to roam free and naked as the day they were born. It was perfect weather and the snoopys were in full force. Big snoopys, small snoopys, weirdos, losers, and supermodels, all were pleasant to one another, like the high […]

Eating a pb&j and deriving zero pleasure from it this is what school lunch is like not like school lunch in “Fame” not like hot lunch jam I eat at school like a machine eats, or like an owl just choking down a whole rat like some kind of monster like somebody eats when they […]

What a week. This week just kept ratcheting up in intensity and although it did not get to pants-shitting levels, it did get to crying-in-office levels. Regular personal stress (planning a conference) ramped up and then combined with national stress (pictures of the Boston bombing) and it was an ugly brew. Whenever I cry in […]

“Like Lady Macbeth! Frailty thy name is woman…” “Where are you getting this” “I’m not sure what you mean by this” “What do you mean” “OMG” “Great” “Great!” “Good” “?” “Bold claim” “Hard to prove” “Is this really the word you meant to use?” “Awkward” “Muddy” “Awk” “Weird and muddy” “Weird and vague!” “Weird word” […]

Dear Advice, My mother is having a major milestone birthday this year, turning 60. For a while she has been saying she wants to go do this weeklong thing in Europe, then she started saying she actually wanted me and my sister to come with, that she was trying to find a way to afford […]

The dog naps loudly twitching, grumbling, active radiating heat like a boiled hot dog in a big pot of water salty, weird, and gross This last month of school is looming like an ice-crag over which I must haul a 500 pound whaleboat. I have never longed for a vacation so urgently in all my […]

The complexity of the brain’s connections comes from the complexity of our experience. Not only does our brain create our thoughts, but our thoughts create our brains. Have a listen to these twenty-two minutes with futurist Ray Kurzweil interviewed on Marketplace Tech by David Brancaccio. Kurzweil works for Google on Artificial Intelligence and the convergence of humans […]