A catalog of the stuff in my apartment
The other day, my husband, Frank, showed me a crack in the enamel on our hideous chartreuse decorative vase. He said it looked as though someone had chipped the item and then made a clumsy attempt to repair the damage using superglue. The implication was that the sneaky someone who had carried out this inept […]
When I was growing up, my family had a World Book encyclopedia set. This print compendium of knowledge was arranged in alphabetical order across 22 volumes bound in red leather. At the time, encyclopedias were a common sight on living room bookshelves and in public libraries. The primary purpose of the books was to give […]
Cooking is like Restoration comedy: not as fun as it sounds, full of tedious business, and very likely to involve a fruity fop swooning onto a fainting couch. In the case of food prep, the fruit liable to feel overwhelmed is me. The task I find especially tiresome is the chopping of vegetables. What a […]
I have to attend two weddings on back-to-back weekends in October, and I haven’t a thing to wear. Worse, both couples tying the knot are composed of gay men, which means guests are expected to achieve feats of sartorial fabulosity. I don’t think my dumpy old funeral suit will cut it. Course, one of the […]
If you ever want to give yourself a flashback to the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic (maybe you’re a masochist, how should I know), I recommend washing your hands while singing the “Happy Birthday” song twice through. Remember that? Sometimes the customs of just a few years ago can feel like they belong to […]
Earlier this year I met a reader of this blog who told me my work reminded him of Erma Bombeck. Since I hardly ever write about my experiences as a harried suburban mom, I assume what the reader meant is that he finds me funny. Or maybe witty, which is what you call a funny […]
The apartment building where I live always thinks it’s on fire. The alarms seem to go off at least once every couple months, sometimes more. And then all the residents have to evacuate yet again and stand around out front until a screaming fire truck arrives and an official confirms that the place is not, […]
These days I really only drink alcohol when I’m out of town. Course, I’m a travel journalist, so my habits hardly qualify me for the Temperance League. And okay, fine, sometimes, even when I’m not out of town, I’ll imbibe at social functions. Fortunately for my liver, I attend as few of those as possible. […]
If the set dresser for the movie of my life had the gall to decorate the coffee table belonging to my celluloid self with the actual books actually sitting on my actual coffee table, I think I’d accuse the production’s art department of homophobia. The books are: A little on the nose, don’t you think? […]
I’ve been attending Pride parades since the early 2000s. That amounts to a quarter century’s worth of June Sundays spent standing around in the hot sun and squinting at go-go boys on floats. To tell you the truth, I have never exactly found the spectacle riveting. I don’t blame the LGBTQ+ community. Time and again […]
Indirect Objects 