A drum set, and other gifts not to give to children.
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I found myself in a conversation the other evening in which the topic of Santa arose, and with it came the typical, post-adolescent baggage: How old were you when you found out Santa wasn’t real? It seems that Santa has a very thin line of discussability (today's word du jour). Either you are six, or thereabout, and Santa conjures up images so explosively potent that you have to lock yourself in a bathroom until the feeling passes, and though the whole messy Santa business only lasts for about twelve total hours on the night of his imminent arrival, you still swear...
Gary makes me hungry.
I had a long, fun conversation with my friend Gary the other day, Sunday actually, over the telephone, and we quickly started talking about food, as our conversations tend to do. Gary, now a famous playwright/critic, who spends most of his days on a plane, as opposed to by a plate, always wants to hear about what Nana has cooked, created, invented, resurrected from her kitchen shelves. Nana’s kind of magical that way. And she has become something of folklore in my social circles, and many of my friends eagerly await for my Sunday dinner details. (I can think of one person who...
I couldn’t see the title of the book so it must have been about Scientology.
Filed under: Deep South, Everyday, health, humor, life
I There’s a reason people get sick—the attention. But, I’ve discovered as of this morning, there’s a reason good friends drive their sick friends to the doctor and then spend the next two hours in the waiting room having their patience tested—the neighborhood. Of course, this requires explanation. It’s 10:03 AM, and I’ve brought Amanda to the Student Health Center. She’s been very sick to her stomach, and I felt she needed better attention than my telling her to “take it to the toilet” every hour or so. Little did I know the call to action that I was unwittingly engaging myself in. I found...
Not tonight, dear, I have a checkbook.
Filed under: Deep South, education, Everyday, humor, life
I will not turn around for anything or anyone, once I’m on the road heading to my destination of choice (be that New Mexico or Kroger), unless the circumstances are so dire that I have no choice: I need gas, I left my two-year-old nephew sleeping on the couch, you know things like that. For instance, last Thursday when I drove up to Taste of China, because I prefer their cream cheese wontons over China Garden’s, I was determined to get out of the car and walk in the door and eat like a king. Except I had left my wallet at...
The Dollar Bill Incentive, Or, Being Good For Nothing.
I was always an "A" student. I had a memory like an elephant. I never needed a curfew, and I went to church almost more than I went home. Yet, I was terribly, awkwardly naive. A bookworm straight out of the solid core of a ripe apple, I didn't read people as well as words, not until I was much older - and oh how I wish you could shut people up the way you do a book, one flick of your wrist and back they go on the shelf. But me, no, I never questioned authority, and let me tell you that came to backfire...
January 2004: The Five-Day Cider War
I've just about decided that there's nothing that karaoke can't fix. If it can train a Sicilian and a Southerner to live together, in harmony, then at the next G8, or G12, G+number, Summit...we need to hire Disco Dan, or Happy Butch to grab their mic stands and their CDs. I resisted this, what to me, was merely a bar-room, nocturnal, alcohol-fueled passtime, for many years. I felt that I couldn't possibly degrade myself, a real singer, I thought to myself, to such a ridiculously low-level thirst for spotlight attention. Ah, but what a little spotlight can do. With my brief second tenure in Indiana, I...
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