I have a ton of pictures from our weekend in Montreal to show you — I guess that should be tonne, rather — but it’ll have to wait until I relive yesterday’s car towing experience. If you follow me on the Twitter (and really, why wouldn’t you? I’m delightful!) or even the Tumblr (ditto! Plus [...]
Entries Tagged as 'writing'
Don’t sweat the big stuff
June 29th, 2010 · View Comments · travel, writing
Tags:brooklyn·enterprise·navy yard·parking violation·rental car·tow pound
In which I start talking about mysteries but wind up elsewhere
June 14th, 2010 · View Comments · books, projects, writing
I went to a marvelous place on Thursday night called the Mysterious Bookshop. Mysterious indeed. Not only is it a speciality bookstore dealing only in mysteries, thrillers, crime and espionage novels (as well as rare and out-of-print editions), but I had no idea it existed, despite its being around for almost 30 years. It used [...]
Tags:detective fiction·Dickens·Jonathan Lethem·Motherless Brooklyn·mysteries·needlepoint·Sherlock Holmes·this is a weird ass set of categories
Year of living sluggishly
June 11th, 2010 · View Comments · writing
Hey kids, you know what today is?
Besides the World Cup kickoff. 1
Today marks my one-year anniversary with unemployment. Well, technically, it’s tomorrow. June 12th, 2009 was my last day of full-time work — and it wasn’t even a full day’s worth, since I’d normally spend Friday afternoons preparing for Monday’s newsletters. But I’m observing [...]
Tags:career change·career goals·doctor who·job market·lost·mad men·unemployment
Unexpected humor at the humor workshop
June 9th, 2010 · View Comments · writing
I’ve been waiting to write up this post until I could devote more time to it. In the meantime I’ve been telling everyone this story. Let’s call those versions “first drafts.”
Several weeks ago I decided to attend a free hour-long humor writing workshop. No reason why I chose humor other than its time fit my [...]
Housekeeping
May 26th, 2010 · View Comments · writing
The days leading up to a vacation are always glutted with errands and to-dos, and right now I’m just shy of being overwhelmed.
(Vacation from what? You ask. Good question. How about: looking for work? Scout? My apartment?)
I’m heading out tomorrow for my annual trip home. Plans already include a Twins game (against the Yankees! [...]
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Thoughts on Lost – Across the Sea
May 12th, 2010 · View Comments · lost, reviews, television, writing
Here’s the thing about origin stories: they’re never going to fully satisfy one’s need to know everything. Origins — true beginnings — simply don’t exist. There’s always something that came before, always the question “How?” looping back, over and over, until finally you get to a shrug and the unknowable.
The Mother says as much to [...]
Tags:adam and eve·cuse·DHARMA·jacob·lindelof·lost·man in black·season 6·smoke monster·smokey
My Grandmother’s Hats
May 11th, 2010 · View Comments · flashbacks, photo essays, writing
My grandmother was a classy dame. So classy, in fact, that she’d probably disapprove of my calling her a dame. She was a lady.
(When she died, and family gathered together to talk to the rabbi about her life, I remember my mom and aunt saying something like, “She never wore pants. Because ladies didn’t wear [...]
Tags:1940s·1950s·1960s·fashion·grandmother·hats·history·mad men era·Minnesota·st. paul·vintage
This time I mean it, there is REALLY nothing to see here.
May 7th, 2010 · View Comments · writing
We open on a medium shot of our heroine sitting on the couch in the same spot in the middle she’s been sitting in for hours at a time for nearly a year now, with her laptop on her lap (hence the name), a pile of mysteries to her left and a snoozing cat [...]
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Check it, I’m posting by phone
May 4th, 2010 · View Comments · stuff, writing
So this is the first blog post I’ve written by phone. Pretty soon I’ll be ready to join the rest of the 21st century. Aaaaaaaand now I see the iPad’s appeal. A bigger keypad would be nice. I’m sure I’m going to make some pretty glaring typos even with this strangely spot-on yet occasionally bizarre [...]
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In which I actually go out and meet people
April 15th, 2010 · View Comments · writing
I went to the Brooklyn Blogger Meetup at the Bell House last night and I have to say, I think it proved that Brooklyn is the bloggiest borough. (Or at least the food bloggiest.) The place was so packed that it was actually hard to meet people, but I still managed to have a number [...]