Month: December 2006

  • More Centrally American

    This may be my last post for a couple of weeks, for Byron and I, some months back, bolstered by a few shots of whiskey slammed down during a State of the Union address (by the end, we were channeling David Byrne, chopping on our arms, and slurring, “This is not our beautiful country”), decided […]

  • The Best You Can Hope for in the Hoosegow is a Sealy Posturpedic

    Consider this story of misdirected holiday hopes, broadcast last week on NPR: Richard Perez of Lake Station, Indiana, wanted to impress his beloved wife by giving her a plasma television this Christmas. The rub was that he didn’t actually feel compelled to *pay* for the TV. At this point, a little Grinchian ingenuity kicked in, […]

  • An Acceptional Tail

    I read and grade papers for a living. While I was recently compelled to poke a hole in my eardrum with a mechanical pencil when I read the 9,543rd paper on “why bow hunting rocks,” for the most part, my job has its perks: a great schedule, lots of autonomy, and an office door that […]

  • Downward-Facing ADHD Doggie: Frantic Yoga

    “Downward-Facing ADHD Doggie: Frantic Yoga” I may pride myself on being a hearty soul, but the truth is that I host a puny inner wuss, a very small person who lives inside me and who doesn’t like scary or creepy things like: voles; people knocking on my front door wearing crisp white shirts and neckties, […]

  • East or West, My Couch Is Best

    More adventures from the “Jocelyn As Idiot Runner” Files: I am the kind of person who can get lost between my house and my job (where I’ve worked for six years). I can take a wrong street on my way to Cub Foods and end up doing an 18-point turn to back myself away from […]

  • “Tell Me I’m Pretty, Then Watch Me Cling: Lonely Hearts and Icy Lungs”

    Yesterday on the Western Waterfront Trail: -10 degree wind chill + an hour of trail running = me, in the clearance bin at the Lunacy Mart That’s the new math. Three minutes into the run, I was giving myself a serious dressing down: “Okay, this blows like Mt. St. Helen’s. This sucks like a Dirt […]

  • “Suffering From Twinklementia: Color Me Ronnie”

    Zoom in on 1997: One day, having just slammed a triple-shot mocha in an effort to fight off a marauding hoard of the late-afternoon grumps, I made a new friend. As I exited the coffee shop, a woman–a stranger to me–came up and said, “I see you all the time around here, and you always […]

  • Ehhhh? I Cain’t Hear You ‘Lessin’ I Turn Up My Hearing Aid

    Here’s a statement that most everyone–outside of perky cheerleader Homecoming Queens, Buzz Lightyear, Paris Hilton, Lassie, and Barack Obama–can agree with: “I’ve spent a large part of my life feeling not cool but wishing I were.” Certainly, my desire to be “cool” has steadily and mercifully waned since high school ended, and my standards of […]

  • Will Shortz and a Gold-Lame’ Bikini

    Speaking of why parents worry that the schools won’t be able to unlock their kids’ particular gifts… Yesterday, my three-year-old son, Wee Niblet, draped me a big poncho of goosebumps, with one, random comment. We were getting out of the car, on our way to a running store to buy Byron’s birthday present (how Norwegian […]