So you thought it was all about the gifts, eh, compadre? (Well, for Expat Jane, an expert in, I shit you not, packing at the main Seoul P.O., it was, but that’s another story at the end of this one.) No, Neil, my L.A. neighbor, my inspiration 30 miles south on the 405. When the [...]
plugs
I know many of you only visit this site in Bloglines, or NewsFire, or whatever your favorite RSS reader is. I am happy to have you read; really, it is all I ask. The actual prettiness of the site (or lack thereof, which I’ll get to) is beside the point. But if you’ve been reading [...]
When I started this series three weeks ago, it was with the very conscious notion that it’d be winding up on one of the most ridiculous holidays in the world to be coopted by modern consumers, Valentine’s Day. Let us make no bones about it: Valentine’s Day sucks. Having any designated day to buy things [...]
Let’s review: Obtains Ivy League undergraduate and law degrees. Check. Clerks for U.S. Supreme Court Justice. Check. Chucks it all to do nerdy research and write books. Check. Yes, Gretchen Rubin is beautiful and polished and living a life of chic Manhattan mommyhood. Don’t let that shit fool you! Not only has girlfriend written four [...]
Years ago, while living in New York, I had a recurring fantasy: As I was walking to or from my miserable job to my equally miserable apartment, a stretch limo would pull up alongside me. The smoked glass window would roll down smoothly (this is when plebs still had to roll down old-school), a hand [...]
Make no mistake: my friend, Lily, is as gorgeous as they come. And I’m not just talking inner beauty; I mean angel face, non-stop bod, the whole ball o’ wax. And yet… Lily is a nerd. Not an honorary nerd, either: a full-on, piano-playin’, pie-bakin’, own-clothes-makin’, Feynman-readin’ N-E-R-D. The nerds, they are everywhere, you see. [...]
Nerds with a secret are like little kids before Christmas: they cannot, CANNOT, I tell you, wait for the big day. The big day, in this case, was supposed to be closer to baseball season. Or at least post-Stupid Bowl. But I could not, COULD NOT, I tell you, wait one more second. Because I [...]
I’ve spoken before about how resolutions blow big, stinky chunks, but only hinted at how goal-setting can really work. If you are over 40 or a realist (I am in the former camp, but hardly the latter), you doubtless understand too well that there is no one book or system or piece of software that [...]
Despite all the razzing I get from Neil about my fashion-forward geek-aliciousness, I am not an early adopter. Early adopters have to be the first (First!) and they’re willing to pay for the privilege. Me, I am too cheap. I let the early adopters ride out the kinks of version 1.0, wait for structural improvements, [...]
