A catalog of the stuff in my apartment
My second grade teacher, Mrs. Lawrence, insisted that students continue wearing winter coats during recess until the first day of spring, no matter how warm the weather got before then. This was in Arkansas, where winter usually ends in February. By early March we were red-faced and sweating out on the playground, but Mrs. Lawrence […]
Among the treasures I unearthed while packing and unpacking my belongings for my recent move from New York City to Boston: a lapel pin bearing the likeness of Mary Tyler Moore; a handwritten love poem addressed to me by a college classmate who contends that I am “silly on the phone” before praising my “manly […]
The clothes hangers in my apartment are like the Duggars of TLC: There’s a lot of them and they don’t really work. (Seriously: Do any of those people have jobs? Like, I get that their actual occupation is being on that horrible show, but do the parents or any of their multitudes of grown-ass offspring […]
When I was a kid back in Arkansas, snow wasn’t unheard of, but it was always an event bordering on the miraculous. The heavens would open up and make the view from my bedroom window look like a Christmas card, and somehow that meant I got a brief reprieve from long division. It was enough […]
When I was a kid, the big trend in stickers was scratch-and-sniff technology—yet another miracle of the modern age we now take for granted. My circa 1985 sticker album—a colorful spiral notebook with 16 cardboard pages on which blank spaces for stickers are surrounded by jolly cartoon animals, foods, hearts, stars, and other illustrations—devotes an […]
Instead of a collar, my dog, Lucy, wears a bra when she goes out for walks. I don’t consider this piece of equipment a harness because I think of a harness as having two straps—one around the chest and another around the torso with the front legs in between. For me, securing such a contraption […]
I remember next to nothing about visiting George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, in Virginia when I was 9 years old. But I do remember the conversation my mother and I had with some Japanese tourists while we were lined up out front. I don’t know how the chat got started, though if I had to […]
Ever since the coronavirus pandemic put us all on lockdown starting in the middle of March, I have occupied the oxymoronic position of shut-in travel writer. I’m paid to be an advocate, witness, and resource for exploring the world, yet I can’t leave my home. On an ineffectiveness scale of 0 to Susan Collins, I […]
If you go by the numbers alone, I am a Chicagoan, Arkansas born. I left my home state about a month after my 18th birthday and moved to the Chicago area—Evanston to be exact—to attend Northwestern. After graduation, I stayed in Chicago nearly 15 years, bringing my total Chicago time to 18 years and 9 […]
The paradox of seeing world-renowned landmarks, monuments, artworks, and buildings in person is that they tend to look familiar yet strange. Because of all the images you’ve already encountered that depict the famous thing, there’s no mistaking it when you lay eyes on it in three dimensions. But, at the same time, it’s often smaller […]
Indirect Objects 