Mount Surprise
Dec 22, 2011 in True Life Stories
The veranadah we enjoyed our first Tanzanian beers on was at the Moivaro Lodge, a lovely getaway in the midst of a coffee plantation just outside Arusha. (It sounds more… Read on…
The Time My Wife Almost Called the Cops On My Gas
Dec 11, 2010 in True Life Stories
One of the things about being married is that one gets used to being disgusting as a single man and yet that’s somehow socially unacceptable once one grows up and… Read on…
Shalom, I'm a Measuring Jew
Mar 24, 2010 in True Life Stories
My wife, the lovely DJ L’il Bit, was standing next to me in the kitchen one day, and telling me about one of her friends: “she likes to measure out… Read on…
My Martini Glasses Are My Love
Nov 3, 2009 in True Life Stories
I may be predisposed to a bit of hoarding. Not that I collect empty yogurt containers or save used tissues; I just often find myself inclined to keep, you know, bowls that people gave me twelve years ago, or maybe I forget to throw away the stub of the movie ticket for Exit Wounds.1 One time, Mrs. DJ L’il Bit said this thing that helps me out, whenever I’m struggling to decide to throw something away or not: “that decorative peeler is not your mother’s love.” Read on…
Won't Somebody Please Think of the Hangers-On?
Jun 25, 2009 in True Life Stories
I have this vision that Michael Jackson has spent the last few years surrounded by people who had no interest other than diverting as much of his money as possible towards their own support. Despite all the schadenfreude I felt over the King of Pop’s many scandals, I also always felt sorry for him, robbed as he was of any pretense towards a normal life at any time. All of which is a little weird since he wasn’t just King of Pop, he was King of the Whole World while I was in Elementary School. Read on…
And I Am Become Old
Apr 27, 2009 in Food, True Life Stories
Growing up, we were always big on the family meal. Breakfast was in a nook behind our kitchen, at a yellow and white Formica table that just fit in the corner next to the basement stairs. When I was young, I would read the cereal boxes while my parents read their newspapers; I learned every ingredient and every serving suggestion and solved every puzzle on the back. While we weren’t a sugary-cereal household, my mom and I did have our own breakfast indulgence: back in the days before most people used skim milk, we’d pour whole milk on our cereal and then top it off with some half-and-half. Read on…
Dot Nostalgia
Sep 4, 2007 in True Life Stories
It is a complete coincidence that Junior’s vet is around the corner from my dot-com. But, when I picked him up from his Labor Day summer camp boarding adventure this morning, and drove past the big pink stucco building that my dot-com was in — and the Washington Mutual, and the Indian restaurant, and the really good Italian restaurant — of course I thought about mornings of XML programming and afternoons of I-swear-to-god-it’s-client-research visits to teen dating sites. And of course I convinced the AIG to grab lunch with me at the Palisades Garden Cafe. Read on…
Goodbye, Mr. Lakin
Mar 18, 2007 in Otherwise Uncategorized, True Life Stories
I think I need to write more nice stories about High School, because I keep on bringing up bad news. It’s even worse since I seem to be writing crap these days — I’m not sure I have the tools to make what I write meaningful. But it should be. So, if you could do me a favor and pretend the following had been written in such a way as to make you care, I’d appreciate it. Read on…
What, Me Win?
Mar 7, 2007 in True Life Stories
I’m not a big winner — in fact, given my average luck I’m surprised that I ever try anything risky. The only thing I can ever remember winning (apart from the odd board game, which victories I of course attribute entirely to my skill) is a raffle at a company picnic. Read on…
The Sky I Was Born Under
Jan 28, 2007 in True Life Stories, Writing Practice
I am from Baltimore, a place where the blackness of the night is obscured and turned pink by the city lights. Some people bemoan our loss of the night stars — astronomers with the most justification — but this soft blanket of three quarters of a million people’s porch lights and bedside lamps and flickering tvs in the den is something that is particularly, authentically, of our era. It holds in the sirens and car engines and chattering neighbors that provide the background for our reality, reflects them back at us, confines and radiates the atmosphere of the city. Perhaps I love this sky because I was born under it, perhaps I love it because it enveloped me every night. But I do love it. Read on…
Fuck.
Jan 21, 2007 in Spurts, True Life Stories
The Colts won the AFC Championship. They’re going to the Super Bowl.
The Colts are going to the Super Bowl.
This is fucking awful. Goddamn it. Read on…
Christmas Morning
Dec 27, 2006 in True Life Stories
I woke up this morning with a start, completely convinced that it was Christmas morning and that I had overslept, missing the gifts. They say that you know when you’re an adult because you want to sleep in, instead of waking up at 5 am with excitement in your heart. My adulthood must be reluctant at best, because two days ago I woke up before 7 am after a fitful sleep, filled with anticipation for what would lie under the tree.
Or, I guess, the poinsettia, since my grandmother’s apartment is more potted plant-than towering conifer-sized. Read on…
Like a Drowned Cat
Dec 14, 2006 in Dreams, True Life Stories
My third cat, Percy, we got from a farm in Western Maryland when I was in 7th grade. Out of a barn or not, Percy looked like an Abyssinan with the coat of a Russian Blue. When we first got him, I held Percy on my lap as we drove him home; he sat bolt upright and peered out the window for the whole trip. About 20 minutes in, he peed on me, the good, solid, sustained pee that comes from holding it in for a while and then finally letting go when you need to. Read on…
The Embarassing True Story of the One Car I Loved
Oct 1, 2006 in True Life Stories
Dating California girls, I’ve really had the opportunity to appreciate how important car culture is in this state. It seems like all Califorians have a serious opinion of what their dream car is and a knack for spotting their favorite cars on the road. Myself, I grew up in what is a somewhat less car-oriented town, and I’ve never had the relentless California drive to have the greatest, best-driving, best-looking car of all. Read on…
The Affair of the Bottle
Sep 25, 2006 in True Life Stories
I did not — and this probably comes as very little of a surprise to most people who read this blog reguarly — spend much time in the Principal’s office in Elementary School. In all honesty, I simply wasn’t popular enough to have the chance to act out in a way that would gain the attention of the higher-ups. Read on…
I Think There's Some Kind of a Rule That All of My Entries About High School Teachers Must Include The Words "Sic Transit" in the Headline
Jul 25, 2006 in True Life Stories
One of my favorite teachers in High School was my freshman year history teacher. This teacher was one of those portrayed-in-TV-movies-style teachers, intense, engaging, committed to learning and to his kids and, in return, loved by them. We all were thrilled to be in this teacher’s history class, and even after we left he knew our names and our faces for the rest of the four years and would engage us in meaningful conversation in the halls. Read on…
Me vs. the Snooze Button
Mar 14, 2006 in True Life Stories
I have a confession to make, a confession that will make you lose all sympathy for me. A confession that will draw away any residual extent to which you identify with me. A confession that will ensure that you label me, henceforth, as a freak. Aargh. I can barely admit it. OK, here I go.
I’ve only used the snooze button on an alarm clock twice in my life. Read on…
Why I Hate Bank of America
Feb 28, 2006 in True Life Stories
There’s a Bank of America within walking distance; instead, I drive to Citibank. I hate Bank of America because they stole my money and were too incompetent to give me… Read on…
Rain Day
Feb 18, 2006 in True Life Stories
Right now the rain’s coming down, plinking against the exhaust vent of my gas heater. The temperature’s falling, air stinging our thin blood in the night. But the rain’s not snow; it leaves the streets damp and washes the smog out of the air but it doesn’t provide the soft, quieting, monochrome cushion of snow. I miss snow, I miss winter, I miss the flakes falling and bringing a heavy silence to the world, I miss the steam from my mouth as I exhale and I miss the sharp, dark nights that come in October and wrap around us in February. Read on…
Confessions of a Failed Musician
Feb 3, 2006 in True Life Stories
My first musical failure — at least, to the extent that I am aware — came when I was three. We were in Boulder, Colorado for a year, living in a rented house that was, naturally, filled with it’s owner’s family’s posessions. Furniture, of course, and photos, and a cat, and, as I discovered one day, a hot pink toy guitar. Read on…
Regiftification
Dec 23, 2005 in True Life Stories
Every year, thousands, if not millions, fall victim to the social faux-pas called “regifting.” These poor souls get gifts given to others, gifts which were unsatisfying to the original recipient and thus have been passed along to the next unwitting giftee. There is wholesale gift-related recycling in my family, but it’s not of the content of the brightly-wrapped boxes under each year’s tree; it’s of the brightly-colored wrapping itself. Read on…
Symbiosis
Dec 22, 2005 in True Life Stories
My grandmother’s best friend is 97. My grandmother, who is quite mobile but mostly blind, is 93; Juanita* has limited mobility but can see better than most people half her age. They go out together, Juanita driving, my grandmother helping Juanita walk, then they have lunch together and gossip about people long gone, reminiscing together about the scandals and achievments that once excited and amused them. Listening to them, it’s like fans watching a favorite movie again, appreciating new details of every scene even as it’s replayed the forty-seventh time. Read on…
Back When I Was Your Age, Sonny...
Dec 10, 2005 in True Life Stories
Actual conversation heard outside the Baja Fresh: Read on…
Not Even Remotely Smurfy (But Very Snowy)
Sep 10, 2005 in Food, True Life Stories
It was a wonderful summer. One of the many perks of being the child of two university professors was a month-long family vacation, every summer, and this one was in France. Now, France is a good thing for a seven-year-old, to the extent that a seven-year-old notices France, but what really stood out was the ice cream. Sure, it was all better than American ice cream, but my favorite was Smurf flavor (in French, “Schtroumpf”). Read on…
Fun In The Boys' Locker Room, Featuring Matt and Alex
Sep 4, 2005 in True Life Stories
I’ve always been bad with combination locks. This time last year, when everyone else was celebrating the fact that they had a brand new locker and no longer needed to lug around their 900-page Accounting and 700-page Microecon books at the same time, I could only think “oh my god, 250 new people — all of whom I’d like to impress — will now have the opportunity to watch me try to open a combination lock multiple times a day.” And the math is bad: an average of four tries per open, times the three times I go into the locker a day, equals nine unsuccessful attempts to open my locker every day (plus three successful). But then I thought, hey, it’s not likely to be as bad as third grade. Read on…
Welcome to Dumpsville, Population: Me
Aug 29, 2005 in True Life Stories
In sixth grade, I switched schools. Rite of passage, sure, but the hard part (insofar as I had minimal-to-no social skills) was to make friends. Somehow, I ended up part of a band of misfits. There was Blaise, the brilliant Spaniard; Larry, the incredibly creative son of a chicken parts magnate; John, the business-focused Korean; and me. Read on…
Training Nerd Camp
Jul 10, 2005 in True Life Stories
If you’re a football fan like me, eagerly awaiting the arrival on TV of those sweet, sweet games you’ve been waiting for all year (and, even better, the start of your Fantasy Football game), then you may know that we’re now in football training camp season. As an intellectually pompous youngster, I used to go to nerd camp — right down the street from the Redskins’ training camp. Read on…
Wrist Fitness: The Key to Finals Success
May 4, 2005 in B-School, True Life Stories
Coming out of our Globl Strategy final on Monday, and then our Management of Organizations final today, my poor classmates were cradling their wrists and complaining of all of the pages and pages of answers they had to write out. But not me. No, I trained long and hard for tests just like this through two solid years of High School AP History. Read on…
My Three Sandboxes
Apr 15, 2005 in True Life Stories
During my horribly-oppressed youth at a Quaker School, I, like many other children in America (and, probably, worldwide), availed myself of the pleasures of playing in the sandbox. Now, most sandboxes are places for children to dig holes and build mounds and get sand in their shoes; at my Quaker school, sandboxes were a tool to enforce conformity. And to get sand in our shoes. Read on…