On being an animal person

Our dog Howie is at the vet today, for surgery. It’s routine (he was being neutered and microchipped) and the vet already called to say that he’s just fine.
I’m an animal person. I have friends who are afraid of animals of any kind, friends who are scared of dogs and friends who find cats to [...]

warning: events in my brain may not be related to actual events

Things I did this weekend:
-researched/read about our upcoming trip to Crete and Berlin, Germany
-spent far too long in a line at Home Depot in order to buy some sod, sand, and plants for a backyard project
-bought some new socks (it doesn’t get any better than this on a Saturday afternoon, folks!)
-spent a lot of time [...]

making writing a priority

This week, with less than a full plate of freelance work, I’ve been trying to focus on making writing a priority again, on getting back into a kind of routine.
By writing, I don’t just mean the actual time I spend typing out words and adding on to/revising stories and essays.
To write, and to be successful [...]

stories without endings

I was having a very, very interesting dream this morning, in which I was surprised to run into someone I used to know but have not seen in quite a few years. It was kind of an intense dream, with abrupt plot twists and suspenseful moments, and the story seemed to have few possible outcomes. [...]

i feel old, sort of.

I awoke this morning with a painful knot in my lower back that has me walking and sitting very carefully so as not to strain anything or make it worse. And the muscles in the back of my right leg and shoulders are sore, I guess from whatever I did at the gym yesterday. And, [...]

the growing pile on my nightstand

I just restarted my New Yorker subscription three weeks ago, and already I’m behind on my reading. By two weeks.
Around that same time I bought three books (two novels and a screenplay), and so far, I’m only halfway through one of them.
And two days ago, I went to the library to pick up a travel [...]

This is where I get all nonfiction-y on you

All these favorite short stories made me wonder yesterday whether people could list 10 favorite essays as quickly or as excitedly. I wondered if I could. I read a lot of essays, and after a while, it gets hard to keep them all separate. I’m horrible at remembering titles, too, which doesn’t help. I tend [...]

Everyone is doing it….

Listing their 10 favorite short stories, I mean. This is extremely difficult for me to narrow down, but:
“How to Breathe Underwater,” Julie Orringer
“The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien
“The Secrets of Bats,” Jess Row
“Skin Care,” Judy Budnitz
“Future Emergencies,” Nicole Krauss
“Labors of the Heart,” Claire Davis
“Dreaming of Kimchee,” Banana Yoshimoto
“The Beginnings of Grief,” by Adam Haslett
“The Shell [...]

Seriously: Universe? What’s up?

As I mentioned, something very strange is going on. I got another almost-acceptance in the mail today….that’s two in one week! This one is even better than the last, as I am one of ten finalists in a contest hosted by a magazine someone might have heard of, based at a university that everyone has [...]

Shh! We’re in a library!

It never, ever fails: When I go to the library, people talk to me. I’m minding my own business, lost in the maze of stacks, zoned out among all those yummy books, and someone, usually — no, always— a man, decides that this is an excellent time to speak with me. Some of these people [...]