A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan: I liked the conceit more than the actual book, though I did enjoy it well enough. American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, by Nancy Jo Sales: I read this mostly on an airplane, and it was so depressing I started sobbing. Granted, I also thought I might have appendicitis and was afraid my appendix was going to burst somewhere over Nebraska. Jungle of Stone, by William Carlsen:… Read more »
Posts By: Claire
2017 Reading List, Part 2
A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson: I was still in Morocco and reading on my Kindle, and I wish I had had a hard copy of this so I could look back more easily. I don’t know if you NEED to read Life After Life before reading this, but I would recommend. And I’d recommend both. Cities I’ve Never Lived In, by Sara Majka: This is really plain prose, and somewhat bleak. I was more interested as I went… Read more »
2017 Reading List, Part 1
The Trespasser, by Tana French: I love that Tana French’s books are all set within the same world and threaded together via the main and supporting characters. You can generally read most of them without being spoiled about the rest, with the exception of In the Woods and The Likeness (which is still my favorite). Oryx and Crake (reread), by Margaret Atwood: One could technically categorize 70% of this list as “post-apocalyptic,” leaving out only the police procedural, the WWII… Read more »
#HashtagWars
I love any absurd Twitter hashtag game, like #FatIndieBands or #TrueLoveInFourWords or whatnot, but I always get a little deflated by the fact that, by the time I realize they are happening, people have thought of everything already. So I thought I would make my own… Ruin a childhood toy in one letter: Lite Bite Rainbow Brute Skinky My Little Phony GI Joke See N Pay Power Heels Kinker Toys Not going to lie–I had a pretty strong level of… Read more »
Healthcare Part 3
Ugh. I’m tired of this story (so tired, apparently, that I avoided finishing it for a month. Um…summer break?) But anyway: (Part 1 and Part 2) Having had no luck at the doctor’s office in its many and varied forms and no luck at my normal pharmacy, I tried my case at City MD, where I had been assured that they “routinely write same-day prescriptions for SSRIs.” I went there prepared to pay $125 out of pocket to be seen,… Read more »
Healthcare Part 2
I thought this was going to be a two-part post but it seems it’s going to be three parts. After not being able to pick up my prescription from the pharmacy on Tuesday night, I started calling the doctor’s office on Wednesday morning. The first time, I left a two-minute message with the administrative assistant’s voicemail. When I hadn’t heard back by Wednesday afternoon, I called again. This time the I tried the appointment line. As soon as I reached… Read more »
Healthcare.
Let me talk more about the Kafka-esque nightmare of the healthcare system, EVEN WITH reasonable insurance and a doctor’s office down the street from me. I don’t even want to think about what would/will happen if/when the system we do have is dismantled and replaced by something worse… I guess this was precipitated back in March when I needed a typhoid vaccination…in that the pharmacy that had the oral typhoid vaccine is going to come into play in this story…. Read more »
Making up words
Or as Tracy Morgan would say, “WORDPLAY” Inconsonance: When you just can’t stop your p’s, t’s, and q’s from dribbling out of your mouth. Planner + Flaneur = planeur – someone who is pretending to wander but is actually really anal and has set out a specific path. Slur-gery (I can’t claim coming up with this one–just defining it): Drunkenly performing an operation on someone. This is only tangentially related but the other day I misread “instagrammable” as “mammogramable”
Los Angeles flora and fauna
Los Angeles always gets me with how amazing everything smells. I could just walk the hills smelling things all day. I encountered some excellent animals and plants in LA and San Diego. Here they are:
Sad Brooklyn
I need to magically become a graphic designer so I can draw this map. Sad Brooklyn: Frown Heights Dark Slope Upset Park Bensonhurts Fort Mean Boredom Hill Squabble Hill Gowahhhhhhnus Prospect Fights Phony Island Vinegar Pill Flat-affect bush Williamsblerg …that’s all I’ve got.
