Humor
/Entertainment
A Requiem for Debris
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
After Two Ferocious Storms, Making Peace with Florida
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
Can We Continue To Live on the Edge of Disaster?
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
A Transcript of Trying To Cancel Internet
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
Cats Are Having a Redemption Arc
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
Water Will Heal Me
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
In the Chaos of Moving, Finding Goodbye
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
Rules for Inviting Me to Game Night
We recently received an invitation to a friend's house for game night.
"Great," I told my husband. "Do we have to play games?"
I am not opposed to all games. I'm not opposed to anyone who plays games, game designers, game salespeople, game collectors. I hereby recognize that games bring pleasure to untold humans in an often dispiriting world...Read more
A Prayer for a New School Year
New school year, work your magic.
Bring on the perfectly plaited braids and buns topped with bows, the toothy, spitty smiles, the crinkly corners of eyes. Stuff our souls with smushed sandwiches and sloshing squares of purple juice.
Unearth those adorable, dorky chalkboards. Age: 6. Grade: 1. Favorite food: Noodles. Cupcakes. Goldfish. When ...Read more
Why Tim Walz Is a Florida Man
As a mere regular person, I don't know how political vetting works. I picture an episode of "Veep." Lots of blazers whirring by, young assistants decoding Gen Z memes, haggard operatives unearthing photos of potential candidates with appendages in light sockets. It was one time! In college!
When laboring over a presidential running mate, did ...Read more
Why the Olympics Are the Perfect Distraction
The word "dissociation" gets bandied about in these chaotic times, usually in context of watching forced proximity dating shows or capybara videos. This type of mental clocking out is passable but ultimately unfulfilling. It's numbing at best, doing little to stoke the champion fires within.
The Olympics, though. The Olympics have dropped ...Read more