My blog archives are not gone. They are somewhere in the ether and will be loaded into the new site on Friday, according to the nice web people who know what they are doing.

Ever feel like your life didn’t happen?

No, no. Me neither. That’s ridiculous.

Totally.

I have a side gig as a storyteller. It’s semi-official.

A friend who teaches at Columbia asked me to come to one of her writing classes and tell stories. The class was spending time in an oral (aural?) unit and she wanted a guest speaker. Gertie and I met long ago via mutual friends; I’m not sure we have any of those people in common at this point, but she remembered seeing me perform or show an ability to entertain with my mouth (hey-o) and asked me to come in and be an extemporaneous narrator, basically. One hour, a little bread, … Read entire post

When it’s this warm in Chicago in January, there may be cause for alarm.

This is not, I think, because the mild breezes are sinister messengers of the global warming that will melt all our icecaps/faces off. I suspect we are not the first crop of humans to feel a mild (and early, mind you) winter. But city dwellers should still tread carefully out there: when cold-winter people catch a break like this, they go a little nuts. I saw a young student in shorts shriek with joy and dive-bomb his buddy in order to wrestle him to the ground. On … Read entire post