A catalog of the stuff in my apartment
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 find it jarring when my parents or sisters stop using products I grew up with. What is a family, in the end, but the group of people you share your brand loyalties with? It feels weird when that sacred contract gets broken. At some point after I left home, for example, my mother switched […]
My new rice cooker looks to me like it has a face saying BLEHHGH. The eyes are the appliance’s Cook and Warm lights; the mouth and tongue are the on switch and its casing. The face kind of reminds me of Alfred Jarry’s drawing of Père Ubu. My husband, Frank, however, thinks the rice cooker […]
I started dating my husband, Frank, almost 18 years ago; we met on October 2, 2006. If our involvement with one another were a person, it’d be old enough to join the military—probably the Navy, since that’s the gayest branch of the armed forces, owing in large part to the indisputable truth that sailors get […]
Not long ago, I was working on the Boston Globe’s Sunday crossword puzzle while riding the T. A young woman seated next to me kept looking over my shoulder. Eventually, a spot opened up next to her friend on the other side of the car, and the looky-loo took her prying eyes over there. I’m […]
I used to have a CD that had a whole bunch of old TV commercial jingles on it. I assume this compilation was put on the market in an attempt to capitalize on the nostalgia of baby boomers. Somebody gave me the CD as a gift when I was age 12 or so. I had […]
I learned of my maternal grandmother’s death while I was on a ghost tour at Lizzie Borden’s house in Fall River, Massachusetts. Don’t worry—a ghost didn’t tell me. My mom did, by cell phone. I was taking the tour as part of an assignment for my job as a travel editor. Ordinarily, I don’t court […]
My dog, Lucy, who turned 13 last month, takes two daily medications now—one for her skin allergy, the other for heart disease. The heart one is new. She had an echocardiogram a few weeks ago and the vet determined that the dog’s cardiac condition has worsened since the last check. I don’t think we’ve reached […]
Of the approximately 250 units in my apartment building, just two, by my count, get daily newspapers delivered. I think we can agree that doesn’t bode well for the future of print journalism. One of the subscribers is a 70ish guy who lives on my floor. He has wispy white hair and a demeanor of […]
One football season many years ago, I decided to watch all the Chicago Bears games on TV. I had never really given the sport a chance before, even though I grew up where the Arkansas Razorbacks inspire a religious fervor rivaled only by, well, the locals’ religious fervor. I guess I wanted to see, at […]
Indirect Objects 