I've kept a journal since second grade. I have dozens at my parents' house in a big box, and at least that many in my apartment in New York. The thing is, I never open them once I'm finished. I don't write to chronicle, I write to get things out. Sometimes, I will start a new journal just to symbolize a fresh start or a new beginning, closing ( Read more... )

New Year's Eve was fun -- low-key since I was sick, but a good way to start the new year. A few new friends and I went to the Brooklyn Bridge to watch the fireworks over south Manhattan. I took a crappy picture, but it's enough to give an idea of how gorgeous it was. You can vaguely see the Statue of Liberty.


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... you have a fantastic seven-letter word on Scrabulous (Facebook's version of Scrabble) but nowhere to put it ( Read more... )

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I am so excited that the movie is coming out. The books were so good, and I am absolutely dying to see the first in the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, "The Golden Compass."

I just saw the trailer for the first time and almost wet my pants. Check it out.

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Both of my rats died in the past week. I put Sammy to sleep today. I posted about it on my other blog, so I'm just going to include links. It's funny ... I never felt like I lived alone before, because I have pets. Now I really feel alone.

Frank's death and the illness

Sammy's death

"The Impotence of Proofreading," by Taylor Mali

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Sometimes, The Associated Press runs really ridiculous mistakes. Like getting its and it's wrong or not following its own style and misspelling al-Qaida.

And sometimes, the mistakes are just priceless.

Take, for example, this line from a story about World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz's recent drama:

"By tradition, the World has been run by an ( Read more... )

A few months ago, I was contacted by a textbook publisher about a column I wrote in college for the S'News (see here, ignore the horrendous picture). They wanted to use it in an anthology of writings for a college writing class. I wrote about it here; at the time, I thought it was a scam.

But today, I got my book in the mail! My column is printed, ( Read more... )

This morning, my alarm went off to the radio news. The announcer was talking about a huge investigation in which a major brand of lipstick was found to contain lead ( Read more... )