Awake but not winning

I roused myself from my now usual 8:45-9:30 nap with the goal of writing a wry and charming blog post. On the way to the computer I had the brilliant idea that I’d put those grocery store cookies in the oven and reward myself after my post with a nice warm chocolate chip cookie before [...]

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Cancer babies

I offended a co-worker this week. We were in our weekly development staff meeting (which only happens about one week in three, and is not to be mistaken with staff development meeting, which would be for our betterment – this is in fact, development, that is, fundraising, staff, sitting around yakking about what we need [...]

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11 Things

December 11 – 11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? –reverb10.com 1. Work for pay. My life does not need this exchange of my creativity for money.  It’s crass. I’m happy to [...]

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A Guide to Visiting DC (for Jon Stewart’s rally-goers)

First I want to say to Jon Stewart and his “Rally to Restore Sanity” crowd, welcome to our city. We’ve been waiting for you! It’s been two years of over-wrought red-staters with misspelled signs, fanny packs and racial epithets leaving McDonald’s wrappers in their wake for those of us who call the nation’s capital home. [...]

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RIP OED: My best dictionary story

The story of the Oxford English Dictionary is a fascinating one – a tribute to the power and fascination of language. And now its life as a print edition is over. In honor of the OED, I offer readers my best dictionary story, one of the many delightfully bizarre incidents that occurred during my time [...]

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Your (Un)Happy Place

A few months ago I posted a link to a blog that cracks me up: Unhappy Hipsters. The writer captions images from Dwell Magazine with emotionally bleak expositions of the underlying mental states of the inhabitants of these artful homes. I’ve been searching (so far mostly fruitlessly) for real research on the impact of your [...]

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Life with Betty, part two

Click here to read Part One. I had to purchase a new Kindle book, for a couple of reasons. First, we have lots of very short breaks in our day on jury duty. Usually between one attorney and the next, or while the next attorney waits for or prepares a witness. The history of food [...]

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Life with Betty, part one

Pour a glass of wine, this is a long post. Names have not been changed, because there are no innocent to protect. Betty took a near-instant dislike to me, which made sense I guess, because I took an even nearer-instant dislike to her. It was not a race thing – I’m not like that. It [...]

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Is that an Adam’s apple in your throat?

I know this song from my childhood. I tried to sing it to the Monkey tonight but couldn’t recall the lyrics, and when I went to find it on You Tube, low and behold: it’s not sung by a dude. It’s a chick who sounds like a dude. Cheers.

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Parakeet’s Tale

Copied with permission from Tastee Pudding. A few days ago, Amanda posted this photo, followed by the tantalizing prompt “How, exactly, do you find a parakeet? Explain the story behind this flyer in 250 words or less.” Here, from the comments section of Amanda’s post, is my reply: I wake with a start. The dream [...]

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