(Heyyyy, if you’re just in this for the free stuff, scroll down past my heartfelt story for the giveaway!) I’m thankful for a playful spirit, even as I creep toward 30 years old. At my first-ever soup party last year, 40 people, many of whom were strangers, crammed into my one-bedroom apartment to sample [...]
I’m thankful for my train station. I can see the Brown Line from my living room, where I’m sitting right now. I watch trains roll in from both directions, their fluorescent interior lights orange-blue through the newly bare branches out my window, the warm glow of the heat lamps , the dwindling number of people [...]
When all else fails… Lead with a photo and hope the words come. Tomorrow night, I will emerge from my anti-Halloween cocoon a downtown Diva, a Woman of Words, celebrated with hotel-bar cocktails and a photo slideshow. Ordinarily, I shun words like maven, guru, diva and ninja. Because, well, they’re lame. But when someone [...]
This post is about a free thing I got. I think I’m supposed to disclose that so that FTC doesn’t come after me. Neither Klout nor Nike held me at gunpoint to make me write about it, nor did they even expect me to. They gave me free things out of the goodness of their [...]
Just wanted to follow up on my post from a couple of weeks ago. The Timtacular came and went, and it was glorious. There was lots beer and cheesy pizza and a band and a live auction with children’s flash cards for paddles. I crapped out really early because…well, I’m 80. But everyone else stayed, [...]
Last Sunday, I dropped my phone outside a restaurant in Andersonville. For the record, I’d had one drink. ONE. (We’ll blame the Angostura bitters here, but really, I need my head examined.) I noted that I had dropped it. I chastised myself for being clumsy. Then I walked off without it. Who does that? I [...]
Hi. Hello. It’s Friday. Also, it’s Tim Sarrantonio’s birthday. Happy birthday, Tim. Tim — not the Tim that was my boyfriend but one who is friends with another guy who used to be my boyfriend (and this is where I stop talking about me) — turns 30 years old today. My gift to him: writing [...]
It’s the first day of fall. And I am overjoyed. I’m sitting on the patio of a Starbucks in Roscoe Village, staring up at a cloudless blue sky knowing that in a few hours, I’ll be enjoying one of the many perks of being a full-time freelancer: heading to Wrigley Field for a day game, [...]
“I realized about a year ago that I couldn’t have a complete thought anymore, and I was a tweetaholic. I had four million Twitter followers, and I was always writing on it. And I stopped using Twitter as an outlet and I started using Twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to [...]
Kate Ancell, who taught my “Creative Writing FUN-damentals” class earlier this year at StoryStudio Chicago, sent her students an e-mail today offering encouragement, with nothing but a link inside. This is what I found after I clicked the link: The Writer Richard WilburIn her room at the prow of the house Where light breaks, and [...]