Category: Personal

These days, people joke about Gen X being raised on hose water, but the 1980s were a weird time. Our parents weren’t boomers – they were too old to be boomers – but they nonetheless had a lot to do and not a lot of time for children. It wasn’t solipsism, it was meeting the…

I’ve come to realize that protecting my peace at all costs is pretty much going to be my life goal for the remaining twenty-odd years I have left on this planet. And that includes being on the alert for self-inflicted injuries. Because damn if I’m not my own worst enemy. If there were an Olympics…

No, actually, not so very fun at all. When I started doing genealogy research, my kids immediately asked me if there were slave-holders in the family. Honestly? I was asking the same question. From what I could ascertain, the branch of the MacKirdys who arrived in the US were descended from five or six brothers…

Zorhan Mamdani has done something incredible this weekend. He sent people on a scavenger hunt. Mocking, with the potato chip bag, the aide of Eric Adams who tried to bribe someone with…a paltry amount of money in a red envelope inside a Herr’s Sour Cream potato chip bag, he set up this amazing scavenger hunt…

God, the 1980s were…a lot of things. I wrote about some of this. Reading E. Jean’s new book has brought back a host of new memories. And I don’t need to share them all – nobody wants to know my shit; it’s literally not important. I do need to share that New York in the…

I’m a subscriber and Constant Listener to WQXR. They’re not really on Bluesky, so I can’t be in contact with them the way I was when we were all on Twitter. But I start and end my day with them. Jeff Spurgeon – irritatingly robust, a very morning person (which I am not). Elliott Forest…

Ever wake up and realize you’ve been living in a place for 10 years? I love my apartment. This little bunker, my fortress of solitude, has been my refuge ever since I moved into it. Virginia Woolf was right about having a room of one’s own (and money). Not just for writing fiction, but for…

In my new job, I’ve been working on establishing nourishing routines. So every day, after work, I’m reading (I should be walking or lifting weights – eventually, I will be walking or lifting weights, but I’m not there yet; routines take time) – and I’m reading Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. I never got…

I don’t necessarily like living by the clock. Counting the minutes that I can check my phone before I have to leave for work. Coutning the minutes of the commute. Counting the minutes after I get home, when I can have dinner, wash the dishes, when I can read the book I’m entranced with, when…

Let me start by saying that I love New York City. Let me also add that, contrary to popular belief, Staten Island is not New Jersey – it is, despite its physical distance, very very much the fifth borough of New York City. Last week, it snowed. Now, I park on the main drag, right…

I started regularly going to therapy in August of 2015. My life had hit a crisis point, and it was clear that I needed an assist getting back on track. I called up the local hospital system and got an assessment appointment, and was directed to go to Bayley-Seton Hospital – which was in the…

To every, “What are your plans for the holiday?”, my answer was, “Spending time with family in Boston.” I don’t have family in Boston. I brought family with me, in the form of my portion of Mom’s ashes, as well as the old key to the church that Dad presided over from 1971 to 1995,…

I went down the hole, this past week. Even before the election – I just became useless. Showed up and did my work. But otherwise, spent my time on…I can’t remember. TV is a good escape. I know that I devoured shows and documentaries. An “anywhere but here” moment. My brain, in an act of…

I knew it before it happened. Once the Trump campaign announced a rally at Madison Square Garden, my mind immediately went back to the 1939 Nazi rally, which Trump’s father attended. Ironically (or maybe not!) there were more cops at the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest in Washington Square Park. (Won, by the way, by a…

They want her dead When Princess Diana died, newspapers/the media made a LOT of money. Diana made the media a ton of money in life – I’m American, and in high school I worked at the public library; I sought out the endless magazines and newspapers from our collection to read about her. I watched…

I’m in a crunch at work. Basically, working 10-12 hours a day to meet various deadlines that under normal circumstances would be unrealistic, but we’re a startup with something to prove, and I’m massively invested – both in financial and emotional terms. I slipped right back into this rhythm upon coming home after Mom’s funerals.…

https://poets.org/poem/because-i-could-not-stop-death-479 I’m diving into fall with a vengeance. Ghost and witch movies and TV shows, roasts and veggies in the oven. Doing a lamb shoulder tonight. And prepping a past’alla norma for the week. It was 82 degrees outside today, and it’ll be 78 tomorrow. It’s only September 14th. I know something’s up. Mom died…