A catalog of the stuff in my apartment
The last time I was back home in Arkansas for a visit, my two younger sisters got into a long-drawn-out debate over the following passage from the instructions for the Rummikub game: In order to make an initial meld, each player must place tiles on the table in one or more sets that total at […]
The worst party game ever created is of course Cards Against Humanity. Making racist, sexist, and transphobic jokes, even from a supposed ironic distance, is gross enough. But Cards Against Humanity goes a step further, requiring players to make somebody else’s prefabricated racist, sexist, and transphobic jokes. It’s like listening to an acquaintance recite lines from […]
A calendar is a hopeful purchase, what with all the empty spaces full of possibilities and the tacit assumption that the buyer will survive through December. I usually select a wall calendar among whatever’s on the clearance rack in January. I would prefer for the monthly images to be dog-related, but in the past I’ve […]
I grew up in a home with four women—my mom and three sisters—and they used up toilet paper like they had a vendetta against trees. In fact, we had a family rule that when one of us went to the store for any reason, that person was supposed to pick up a four-pack of Charmin […]
I have three sisters—an excessive quantity by contemporary standards, though far from the most egregious display of fecundity I’ve ever seen. That would have to be the Duggars, the conservative Christian fertility cultists–turned–reality TV stars famous for having 19 children and Lord only knows how many denim maxi dresses. As it happens, the family’s compound […]
The foot of my bed is decorated with the Linström throw quilt from Louise Gray, a Minneapolis-based maker of contemporary blankets, bedding, and other accoutrements of coziness. The company’s website describes the Linström as an “interesting fusion of colors and forms” that “makes for a playful addition to any space.” I think it looks like […]
I read something at each of my sisters’ weddings. The eldest, whose name is Nicole though everybody in the family calls her Nee, was the first to go. My text was Shakespeare’s sonnet 116: “Let me not to the marriage of true minds” etc. The gist of the poem, according to the commentary in the […]
Indirect Objects 