Linguistic superlatives from life recently: Best appellation: 12-year-old student: “Do you like the snake I won? I named it prefrontal cortex.” Best Venn diagram intersection: The shaded region where “gummy snacks” and “popular sperm bank choices” meet: Trader Joe’s “Scandinavian Swimmers” Swedish Fish knock-off. Best portmanteau of more than two words: Boyfriend describing the zombies who live in a video-game subway station: “Deadizents” (citizen…denizen…resident…dead!) Best observation about words’ failings and shifts: Friend talking about how hard it… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Blog
So much to keep track of
I’ve been trying to get rid of things. Mostly tangible things–clothes that itch or that I got in high school, lightbulbs for lamps I no longer own, tutoring materials from the old SAT–but also digital detritus. Items that exist only as files do take up literal space–on my hard drive, Dropbox, Google account–but I’m not generally lacking for that (at least not since I got an external hard drive). What I’m lacking is the ability to ever listen to all… Read more »
Who are you? Overheard at home
Sometimes my living room is full of mythical beings: “Who here is a small creature, besides me?” “Wait, wait–can you tell me how rage works? I’ve never been a barbarian before.” “I just really want to tweet that my roommate is playing harp in a panda suit right now.” Other times… “If you have an extra free printer, great. But you understand I’m a 32-year-old man, right?” LET’S BE CLEAR! Roll call.
Another Subway Story
I love hearing conversations between couples on the train. Woman telling man about the book she’s been reading: “So then her boyfriend gets killed, right? So he’s dead.” That is generally how it works, yes. Woman: “So then she’s going through his stuff and she finds, like, a video of a woman chained to his bed, being tortured to death.” Man: “Oh, a snuff film.” Woman: “Yes–that’s what they called it! Wait. What does that word mean to you?” Man:… Read more »
Best books I read in 2015
ALL of the books I read in 2015…subjective favorites in bold: Blackwater, by Jeremy Scahill The Infinite Sea, by Rick Yancey On Immunity, by Eula Biss The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell, by John Crawford A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall, by Will Chancellor Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card The Female Brain, by Louann Brizendine The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman Hell House, by Richard… Read more »
A subway story
Small child–7? 8?–on the F train sits down next to me, begins quietly singing to the tune of “My Darling Clementine: “Went to Hellll, went to Hellll, went to Hellll just now–” Her 6-ish-year-old sister: “Which one is that? The up one or the down one?” First child: “Heaven is the up, boring one. Hell is down.” (resumes singing) Unfazed grandmother chaperoning them: “That song just goes on and on, doesn’t it.” ETA: Later on, when the train was… Read more »
WTF, Internet?
While using Hopstop (RIP), I found that there was a section for East Anglia, England. What’s the public transport there? Eels? Hopstop might have fared better if it had the functionality to tell you how long it would take you to walk to the train while staring down at your phone the whole time. Things I’ve accidentally Googled while trying to search for “Hopstop”: 1. “hoo” – got this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoo A welcome misfire in the end. Many uses of hoo! 2…. Read more »
Apps I Need
Sneeze-counting app, including tracking of the ever-frustrating missed sneezes. App that gives you new weather when you hit refresh. Similar to the many step-tracking apps: an app that counts all of the words you type and delete on different devices throughout the day. App that lets you change Siri’s voice to Morgan Freeman’s or the vocalist of your choosing. Shazam for my moods. Ability to Google “What’s in my fridge right now and when is it going to go bad?”… Read more »
Best books I read in… (Part Two)
2011: The Ask, Sam Lipsyte The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon God on the Rocks, Jane Gardam (and shouldn’t this be the name of a cocktail?) State of Wonder, Ann Patchett Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier The Emperor of All Maladies, Siddhartha Mukherjee House of Mirth, Edith Wharton The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot The Sky is Everywhere, Jandy Nelson 2012: The Fallback Plan, Leigh Stein Bats Out of… Read more »
Best books I read in… (Part One)
I started keeping a word document of all of the books I read during the calendar year back in 2007, bolding the ones that I liked the most. I usually tried to keep the year’s best to ten and later, five–not forcing it, especially in years when I read more books or loved more of them, but it was nice to have a constraint. Here are (were?) my favorites from the past eight years… 2007: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki… Read more »
