ArcaMax

With Thanksgiving falling on the heels of this ultracombative election year, family dinners have the potential to be fraught, if not fully explosive mashed potato massacres. Don't worry (or do, I don't know your life). Here are some topics to talk about around the holiday dinner table in mixed company this year:

"Who wants to see 25 photos of...Read more

A twin delight and horror of moving into a new house is finding furniture that fits uncharted nooks and crannies.

For instance, while my old home had one dining area, my new home also has a dreaded "breakfast nook." This means that we are to travel between tables to masticate depending on the meal's formality. It's like a suburban version of ...Read more

The first thing I did Wednesday was think, well, punk music is poised to have a big comeback. Shortly thereafter, I started Googling IUDs.

That's an intrauterine device, a T-shaped object inserted into a uterus to prevent pregnancy. I wasn't the only one looking. If you'll indulge a wonkish moment: Google Trends showed Floridians searching "...Read more

You may have heard about a sudden rash of newspaper editorial boards, including the one at the company where I work, declining to endorse a candidate for president. Let's talk about it. With days until this most consequential election, we're going deep on matters of life, death and drowning.

Editorial boards represent the voice of an ...Read more

The mattresses. They're so sad.

I keep sharing this thought with people who scrunch up their brows. When there is so much to be sad about, why the ennui about an abandoned bed?

Because it's not natural to see mattresses piled along the road, three, four, five at a time. A mattress is a sanctuary, a piece of personal polymer where our bodies ...Read more

Driving across Florida in the middle of the night after a hurricane, that's one way to make peace with your God. Or start to try.

My husband and I look up from our evacuation hotel in West Palm Beach after the storm and know, in a deep, bone-and-soul kind of way, that we can't stay one minute longer. We have to cut a line through this state ...Read more

Are you OK?

How did you fare?

Storm victims woke pelting impossible questions into the ether, texting, posting, gathering debris and fishing furniture from toxic waters. Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 behemoth, plowed into Florida's Big Bend last week. The storm's impacts amounted to what experts in the lead-up kept calling...Read more

The following is an only slightly modified account of a recent attempt to sever internet and cable over the phone with a customer service agent.

Hi. I need to cancel my service.

OK, may I ask why?

We moved and are cutting cable and have gone with a new internet provider.

Mmhmm. Did you get the little white box ...Read more

Imagine being a cat right now.

One minute, you're minding your own business for 12 hours in a closet, confident in your superiority and uninterested in haters. You've accepted that the dopey, drooly dog is the all-American archetypal household pet. A ridiculous choice, you think, but caring is beneath you, and you've got biscuits to make.

...Read more

I stood inside 7-Eleven on my way to the office, staring dead-eyed at the drink case and reaching for yet another Celsius to patch in the cracks of exhaustion. A disembodied voice emerged from my left temporal lobe, whispering:

Water.

I bought the dumbest bottle of water. It was Icelandic, or Norwegian, or from some other place ...Read more

I am moving to a new house a few miles away. Apologies to my neighbors who are finding out by reading this. When you live in the suburbs, I suppose the proper thing to do is stand on the stoop a la Tony Soprano and be belly-forward with personal news, but I'd rather disassociate by lining up hoarded hotel shampoos like a glass menagerie. Also,...Read more