Dot Nostalgia
Sep 4, 2007
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… (plus 3 Comments)
Goodbye, Mr. Lakin
Mar 18, 2007
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
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
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
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… (plus 7 Comments)
Christmas Morning
Dec 27, 2006
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… (plus 1 Comments)
Like a Drowned Cat
Dec 14, 2006
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… (plus 1 Comments)
The Embarassing True Story of the One Car I Loved
Oct 1, 2006
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… (plus 4 Comments)
The Affair of the Bottle
Sep 25, 2006
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… (plus 2 Comments)
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
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… (plus 3 Comments)
Me vs. the Snooze Button
Mar 14, 2006
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… (plus 4 Comments)
Why I Hate Bank of America
Feb 28, 2006
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 access to my bank account. Such thieves and incompetents should not be allowed to run a bank, but they are why Bank of America sucks.
I’m not good at holding a grudge, but a few companies have pissed me off enough that I would never buy from them again — Bank of America is one of these. Like most people my age, I signed on with BofA during college, because Read on… (plus 1 Comments)
Rain Day
Feb 18, 2006
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… (plus 1 Comments)
Confessions of a Failed Musician
Feb 3, 2006
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
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… (plus 3 Comments)
Symbiosis
Dec 22, 2005
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
Actual conversation heard outside the Baja Fresh: Read on…
Not Even Remotely Smurfy (But Very Snowy)
Sep 10, 2005
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… (plus 2 Comments)
Fun In The Boys' Locker Room, Featuring Matt and Alex
Sep 4, 2005
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… (plus 2 Comments)
Welcome to Dumpsville, Population: Me
Aug 29, 2005
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… (plus 2 Comments)
Training Nerd Camp
Jul 10, 2005
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… (plus 1 Comments)
Wrist Fitness: The Key to Finals Success
May 4, 2005
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
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…