A catalog of the stuff in my apartment
Have you seen those pants that turn into shorts? Usually khaki and covered in pockets, such trousers have a wraparound zipper near the knee that, by unzipping, lets you show how you not only have bad taste in pants but also in shorts. I often see American tourists sporting this look when I’m in other […]
When I was a kid, my family used “afghan” to refer to any knitted blanket on a couch. I’m not sure whether that’s the strict definition of the word, but that’s what it meant to us. My paternal grandmother said it with three syllables, affigan (rhymes with the last name of comedian Jim Gaffigan). That […]
For Christmas, my mom gave me a new wheeled carry-on suitcase. She also ordered a personalized luggage tag engraved with my initials, ZKT. The tag I got, though, bears the letters LMA. I concluded that must mean the suitcase’s name is Louisa May Alcott, so that’s how I refer to her. I assume someone out […]
Paper money from the U.S. has such a distinctive smell I somehow know what it tastes like even though I have never, to my knowledge, had a dollar bill in my mouth. It’s an unmistakable odor combining mustiness, ink, and sweat. I’m sure the taste is salty and earthy yet also chemical. Is this grossing […]
Not long ago, I ran out of reading material during an out-of-town trip, so I dragged my husband, Frank, who was with me, inside the next bookstore we encountered. I asked him to pick out something for me, ‘cause I didn’t have access to my Books to Read lists and was therefore incapable of making […]
The photo on the holiday card sent out this year by my husband, Frank, and me shows the pair of us at the ancient Greek theater in Taormina, Sicily, where we went in September. The image came out more grainy and low-res than we wanted. It looked better in the digital mock-up when we were […]
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 […]
Three people I knew died in the fall—two of them on the very same day. That would be guidebook legend Arthur Frommer, who founded the travel media company I work for, and Kris Vire, my editor at Time Out Chicago back when I was a part-time freelance theater journalist. Because Kris and I came from […]
Thanks to my ongoing Spanish classes, supplemented by daily Duolingo lessons and consistent pestering of my Puerto Rican spouse (who could stand to show a little more interest in the finer points of the subjunctive, if you ask me), I have progressed in my Spanish learning to the “High Beginner/Low Intermediate” stage, according to the […]
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 […]
