Oh, dammit, Doug. I don’t make it to Boystown often, but every time I’m there, I think of you. I had the best dinner tonight; I actually won it. Just for tweeting. I was only beginning to use Twitter when you knew me. Tonight it won me fried chicken. I went for a run this [...]
I write all my blog posts as Word documents before I transfer them into WordPress and eventually publish them. It takes me hours to write a post, and I’ve lost enough drafts to the Internet abyss that I just won’t risk it anymore. I save every post in my Dropbox, dated and named with its [...]
It seems I can only write from the middle seat these days, peering out a tiny window at nothing but sky. This morning, I’m on Southwest flight 185, en route to Albuquerque, New Mexico, a city I’ve never visited before. It feels like an in-and-out trip, bookended by long shuttle trips to and from Santa [...]
Last Monday, I took the El downtown for a job interview. (Is it the “L” or the El? A debate rages on Facebook.) Rewind: A few weeks ago, a woman sent an e-mail to the address I published on my website, asking whether I’d consider going back to full-time employment if the right opportunity presented [...]
I’m sipping a $10 hotel margarita, on the rocks, with salt, sitting cross-legged on a chaise longue. There’s red vinyl as far as the eye can see, stretched taut across the rows and rows of painted-metal frames fanned out around the pool. I’ve been chasing the sun as it drifts westward in the sky, trying [...]
The first real job I had was in a fur shop. I can’t have been older than 15, and my next-door neighbors owned the shop. I spent a summer sitting on a stool, behind a counter. Occasionally greeting a customer, taking her coat, entering her information in the computer and tagging the coat for warm-weather [...]
On Wednesday, my alarm went off at 5:23 a.m., as it always does. I fought with myself for seven minutes until 5:30 a.m., as I always do. (Well, sometimes longer.) Finally, I groaned and rolled myself out of bed, wriggled into a pair of pants and winced as the floorboards creaked under my feet. I [...]
I’m working with Step Brightly Creative Group and Heather Acton on a brand-new website. I’m so excited, well, I could just about pop. Keep your eyes here for a gorgeous new look right around the holidays — don’t worry, I’ll probably make some noise about it, too. Oh, and there’s a little more to read [...]
Those five minutes of my Friday, walking home from my friend Melissa’s house after going weeks without seeing her, stuffed full of takeout pizza and underbaked chocolate-chip cookie, just tipsy enough on cheap Pinot Noir to notice…the sharp diagonal of Lincoln Avenue stretching ahead of me, bathed in orange fluorescent light, the restaurants beginning to [...]
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 [...]