“I’ve been a little too depressing on my blog lately,” I said to my friend Diane the other night. We were eating tacos at Esquina, and trying to decide if they were as good as we remembered. “Huh,” said Diane, which meant something like You are not kidding, sister. “Maybe you should write about Greek…

I see these memes going around: “At age 30, JK Rowling was depressed and wanted to give up, but she didn’t and now she’s worth 15 kajillion dollars, so you shouldn’t give up either!” And I just . . . think that’s bullshit. It’s not helpful. In fact, I think it’s discouraging. You’re more likely…

The other day, I made the mistake of saying the word “anywho” to a friend who is a lifelong New Yorker.  If you’ve never heard this word, it means you’re not a midwesterner, and I can’t explain it.  Anyway, my friend suggested that I should probably avoid such provincialisms in the future or else people…

It’s that time of year when people start dreading the holidays and the gift giving and start bitching about all the stress they’re under and how we’ve all forgotten the meaning of Christmas anyway, so if they express a Grinch-like attitude, who can blame them? Though I am not religious, I love Christmas. I don’t…

A couple weeks ago, an old friend from graduate school emailed me and said he’d be in town and would I be able to meet him for lunch? I said sure, and then I counted out the years and had one of those moments:       Twenty years since I’d last seen him!  …