Welcome to Dubai! This brief quiz will prepare you for some of the many beautiful sights, exciting shopping and dining opportunities, and cultural practices in our emirate. Don’t worry-you’re not being graded! But your answers will be recorded in case we need evidence later.

Let’s get started!

Which of these will you NOT find easily/affordably in ( Read more... )

In my world, “Christian” is another word for “bigot ( Read more... )

Fort McMurray is burning.

A wildfire rages at the edges of town. Right now. Right now my acquaintances are checking in on Facebook, I’m safe, I’m safe. Right now the fire has become a “crown fire,” the tops of conifers blazing, perverse Christmas trees blossoming with flames a hundred metres high, sparks crossing first the Athabasca River, then ( Read more... )

Twenty-five days to the end of the world ( Read more... )

“It’s Game Night,” he whispered softly into my ear. My eyes scanned his loft apartment, the grey leather Phillipe Starck sofa sitting in the vast, open expanse of platinum-plated floor. Perhaps one day I would call this beautiful place home and polish the solid silver chairs and arrange the Tiffany ornaments. But for now, my inner goddess was ( Read more... )

Album: Dad: Greatest Hits
Label: Love Him or Leave Him
Featured Tracks:
Pawnbroker Car Dealer Loan Shark
He Who Has The Gold Makes the Rules
(You Kids Are So) Selfish
Why’d It Take So Long (Divorce Him)
Since When Do You Own a Sports Bar Dad
Sure It’s a Tiki Bar Now
Funeral in a Bar
I’m Just Like You (And I Like It)

Rating: * * * *It’s not often ( Read more... )

“Miss Allison?” Shelly asks, because we are in Memphis and thus I cannot break 83 teenagers of calling me “miss” no matter how many times I say “Just Allison is fine.” Instead I say, “Yes ( Read more... )

That Writer. Every writing group or class has one. The person who talks too much. Who comes in stoned, or just high on life. Who interrupts the teacher we’ve all paid big bucks/gone through a tedious application process to hear. Who comments as if they themselves are the teacher. Who says things like “Well, you know what Flannery O’Connor said” as ( Read more... )

I always watch for the tortoise. The back wall of the writing studio is mostly a floor-to-ceiling window about eight feet wide, one vast sheet of glass holding the Florida scrubland outside. There’s a white dirt road behind a strip of live oaks and sumac and Spanish moss, and once, in the middle of an afternoon workshop, I saw a tortoise stumping ( Read more... )

TPA-JFK-CDG-DXB“We ask all passengers to please remain seated and keep your seatbelts fastened. Crew remain seated ( Read more... )