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
On summers. Enthusiasms is on vacation for August, just like we’re in Europe. Here’s one from the archives in the meantime. <3 J — As a kid, my family’s...
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...
