Flipping the Record Over
I gotta say, the amount of terrible things that happen in and in the name of the United States makes this project feel silly sometimes. But, I think, for me,...
Popping Your Ears
No one really tells you how many indignities you’ll suffer on account of having a body. These are just things you learn, living in the body you have. I hate...
Sneakers
I was talking to someone earlier today who said they felt like a scrambled egg, which is exactly how I feel on this spooky Friday the 13th afternoon! That’s...
Berlin U-Bahn
Buying a ticket was as confusing as I remembered. The first time I was in Berlin, in 2015, I just picked whatever and hoped, in the event that someone came...
The Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2)
I was about midway through eating a popsicle when I realized I didn’t really know what it tasted like. Do these have a flavor? I called up the stairs to C.,...
Lanternflies
I tried to recall where my friend had lived in Brooklyn, but everything had changed so much since then, or, otherwise, each block looked the same as the last...
Expensive Fruit
We bought peaches with the intention of making pie. They cost $30 at the fancy little food store, an exorbitant amount that we were, nonetheless, too proud...
Ice Cream Cone
On Sunday afternoon, I was in a mood. The self-pitying kind that propagates, curdles. It started when what I anticipated to be a simple bike repair turned...
Sailing
I like sailing for some of the same reasons I like riding a bike—it’s you and a machine working together to get somewhere. You could become proficient at...
Changing a Tire
Changing a tire is, I guess, one of those life skills that are handy to have as an adult—like poaching an egg or avoiding someone you don’t want to see out...
Sharktivity
This week, I’m running one from the archives. Please enjoy this 2018 vintage Enthusiasms on Sharktivity, which I firmly believe is the only good app and one...
Twilight in Boston
I like to note that Jonathan Richman and I share a favorite part of town. The little memorial/By the Victory Gardens — yeah, I’m imagining it right now. Few...
Hammock
As a kid, my family’s summer vacations went like this: One year, we’d take a “big trip” somewhere, and the next we’d go to Cape Cod. There, we’d rent the...
Fireflies
I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many fireflies as I have when we’re on Long Island, a place I had never really thought of as being beautiful until I married...
Typos
Things happen. A family emergency left us stuck in Colorado for four more days than planned (and is also why this blog was MIA last week!) Luckily, everyone...
Rain Boots
I did not expect to cry at the boygenius concert. I just laughed out loud, typing it out—am I a stereotype? Sad girl at the sad girls show. But really, it...
Birthdays
On my birthday, everything should go my way—though the universe hasn’t always agreed with me on that. I don’t always get what I want. One year, as a kid, I...
Graduation
I guess it is foolish to expect better of our varied and variable institutions, but, as you may have seen, my alma mater invited David Zaslav, currently in...
Playing Zelda
The best thing about video games is that they are fucking funny as hell. I was going to say that I only learned this as an adult, having grown up in a...
Checking the Air in Your Bike Tires Before Every Ride
It’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that I’m, as the great Naomi Fry once tweeted, “very paris '68 in that i'm a staunch hard-edged communist as well as a decadent...
Hansen's Sno-Bliz
The first time I went to New Orleans, it was at the tail end of a breakup I didn’t want to happen. I feel like we’re both on a train to New Orleans, and I...
Cats
I consider myself a cat person, but I am mostly a my cat person. Harpo, my cat, was uncommonly good. I sometimes liked to believe that I had made him this...
The Boston Marathon
What can I say? I’m a sucker for civic pride. This is the first year that I’ve worked somewhere they actually gave me Patriots’ Day—aka Marathon Monday, aka...
Intermission
Yesterday, I had every intention of coming home from work and sitting down to write. But then, I had two beers at the end of what was an all-day work event...
Baseball on the Radio
If you cannot be at a baseball game in person, the next best way to watch is not at all. I love it, though I can understand how one might find baseball...
Being Late
Astute readers of this newsletter may notice today is Thursday. For the past three months (!) I’ve been sending this out Wednesdays, but this week Wednesday...
Getting a Tattoo
I am not always good at explaining what I want. I worry too much that I am being annoying, or that the thing I am asking for is too weird. Or both. Also,...
Knowing How it Ends
The other weekend, on the plane back home from Tampa, I spent most of the flight re-watching season two of Jane the Virgin. Damn, I almost forgot about this...
Tailoring
I needed new pants. The ones I had, I had to unbutton at my desk. They fit, in that they technically went on, but wearing them was getting unbearable. In...
The Beach
Is Thunderball the best James Bond movie? Discuss. Last Friday night, I slept for like two, maybe three hours, and woke up a blasted skeleton of a human on...
Birdwatching (Sort Of)
Everything about Flaco, the owl that escaped its enclosure in Central Park Zoo and is now positively thriving as a free owl, is perfect. Manhattan Bird Alert...
All the Saddest Love Songs
I had a different thing all ready to go for today, but then I was on the bus listening to my playlist of love songs that is like 40 percent songs about being...
Delux Cafe
Isn’t it so nice to have a place? I don’t quite mean being a regular somewhere, though that, too, has its (often kinda parasocial) charms. It’s more like a...
Snow
Ed. note: This week’s edition of Enthusiasms is late, partially because I spent my Sunday with my good friend and her very cute baby (worth it) but also...
Complaining
A thing I have been working on for [redacted] years is where to put my feelings. What is the right balance between acknowledging something sucks and not...
Sewing Parts Online Dot-com
A year or more ago, I inherited a very old sewing machine that once belonged to my husband’s grandmother’s friend, Rina. I never met my husband’s grandmother...
French Lessons
This past fall, in Paris, I surprised myself. Je suis la jeune fille. I left a small black bag on the train, next to my seat, I said, in perfect French—or,...
Welcome to Enthusiasms
Subscribe now Let me (re)introduce myself Enthusiasms is a project I started some time ago, over on my website, and updated at what could generously be...