In a culture that is fixated on violence as entertainment, and is becoming increasingly desensitized to random acts of manslaughter, it’s easy to forget that murder is not only a horrific plot device or a stomach-dropping headline; we don’t really give much time or attention to victims of crime for very long before we move on to the next big thing. Sarah Perry’s memoir, After...
(I couldn’t help myself, but now the song is stuck hopelessly in my head and I’m having nostalgic flashbacks of dancing to Like a Virgin with my cousin in her bedroom while wearing a Benetton sweatshirt.) Earlier today I read a comment from someone who excitedly shared that their child had been enthralled with a specific toy, namely that said child had spent a whopping two hours...
I got to work this morning and had just started sipping my coffee when I saw a message pop up from Mr. Brain: I’d like to say that this was a rare incident, something so out of character as to have created a head-scratching whodunit, but I think the truth is a little messier, or rather, I am a little messier. I’d also like to think that this is indicative of some endearing quality...
Finding the right book at the right time is one of those rare gifts from the universe, much like finding forgotten chocolate in my desk drawer, or seeing a rainbow on an especially desultory day. Starting 2018 with Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine was one of those rare gifts, even doubly so in setting the tone for what I hope to be a year of plentiful literary wanderings...
This morning I survived an excursion to my local YMCA to run on a treadmill. The anomaly wasn’t running, it was doing it indoors at the Y. Snowy arctic blasts, blistering heat with monsoon like downpours, I’ve run through it all, and my previous treadmill experiences have been limited to sparsely populated hotel gyms or my parents rickety treadmill in the isolation of their basement...
While I have not read the book that inspired the title of this post, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, it’s more likely after this weekend that I might, or at least I might attest to the validity of its title. Yesterday I completed a task that for me was somewhat Herculean and required weeks of mental preparation. Perhaps inspired by the closing of the holiday season and the usual...
I like new beginnings; I like the sense of hope and renewal that we typically tend to invoke this time of year in the form of new year resolutions. These new starts for me have historically involved the creation of grand ideas involving skills I do not possess, and which must be learned mastered before I can even really begin to conceive of the the goal I’ve loftily put in place for myself...
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