A catalog of the stuff in my apartment
At this time of year, holiday music is like James Corden in 2019: ubiquitous and terrible. I don’t pretend my own taste in carols is superior to the norm, but I do know what my ears want to hear in December. My personal canon of Christmas albums would have to include the following 10 recordings. […]
When my husband, Frank, and I were in Vietnam in the spring for our annual Big Trip, the theme of the vacation seemed to be Hats ‘n’ Holes. We kept being led into tunnels and caves and such, and we kept donning various types of headgear, such as pith helmets in the caves (presumably to […]
One of the pieces of furniture I have owned the longest is a skinny stack of wooden drawers that looks like it could have come from a library’s card catalog section. I use the cabinet to store my CDs, almost all of which I acquired during the 1990s. Basically, the whole setup is a Russian […]
I received a fair amount of Dolly Parton merch for Christmas. I got to interview the country legend in the fall for a travel story I did on Dollywood, so I guess my loved ones were still associating me with her in their minds. I am not complaining. One of the Dolly-related items I got […]
The front of the holiday card my husband, Frank, and I sent out this year features a photo of us in front of some evergreens. The location where the image was captured is just outside of our apartment building. Full disclosure: The boughs over my head were digitally enhanced to appear fuller than they did […]
The dumbest song ever written about Chicago is probably “My Kind of Town,” originally performed by Frank Sinatra in the 1964 Rat Pack musical Robin and the 7 Hoods. Lyricist Sammy Cahn intends to praise the city, but he never gets specific, so he sounds like someone who has never been there. (Jimmy Van Heusen […]
Some stuff that sounds like a lot of fun actually isn’t all that great. Outdoor dining is one example. Sex in the shower is another. In either instance, you usually wind up feeling chilly. Both of those experiences are better than going on a winery tour, though. Or, really, a tour of any booze-producing […]
I got into Dolly Parton during the release of her extraordinary trilogy of bluegrassy albums: The Grass Is Blue (1999), Little Sparrow (2001), and Halos & Horns (2002). Before that, I didn’t know much about Dolly, though I was aware of a few of her country singles, the films 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias, […]
When my husband, Frank, and I lived in New York City, there wasn’t room in our apartment for a dining table. As a matter of fact, there was barely room for our 15-pound dog. But moving to a bigger place here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, gave us an excuse to acquire more furniture to fill up […]
This year’s Christmas tree came with a ribbon tied to one of the branches identifying the tree as a “North Carolina Fraser fir.” So I named it Treena Simone in honor of North Carolinian Nina Simone. Granted, the High Priestess of Soul wasn’t the holly-jolly type of entertainer we typically associate with the December holidays. […]
Indirect Objects 